How to add column in Google docs (multiple columns)

Wish to offer your readers a place to rest their eyes? A Google Docs document laid out in columns can do it for you! Adding columns in Google Docs help you to create a better-looking document when your document is text-heavy. Let us see how to add column in google docs.

Adding multiple Columns in Google docs helps you to organize your text in a newspaper-style, reports, or brochure format where the text runs through a series of narrow columns.

You can add, delete, customize the number of columns as much as you need based on the purpose you wish to fulfill. Also, to make sure the process is easier for you, we have made a guide on how to make multiple columns in Google Docs.

Google Docs Columns On Part Of Page

Adding columns in Google Docs help improve the readability, clarity, and conciseness of your Google Docs. Let’s dive deep to know how to add multiple columns for easy structuring of your Google Docs document.

Add column in google docs

Google Docs offers the ability to split your text into multiple columns. You can add up to three columns to your Google Docs. This feature will be useful for certain types of Google Docs documents like newsletters and brochures.

How to add two columns in Google Docs?

• If you want to split your Google Docs document into two columns, you first need to highlight the text that you want to split up into columns.
• Go to the Google Docs menu bar and click Format.
• In the Format menu, hover over Columns, then click the two columns icon in the middle.
• As soon as you click on this “two columns” icon, the text you selected will be split into two columns.

• The format of these columns will now be changed to the newspaper style. This makes the left-hand column filled up with text, and only when you have reached the bottom of the page will the second column begin to fill.

• If you don’t have enough text to fill more than one column, the right-hand column will remain blank.

This is how we can add columns in Google docs, especially, we can add two columns in Google docs.

Restore multiple columns to a single column

If you have text in columns that you want to return to a single column, you can make it to a single column with ease formatting.

To restore Google Docs text to a single column,

• First, highlight the columns that you want to return to a single column.
• Now head over to the Format menu in the Google Docs menu bar.
• Click on “Format” and hover over the Columns sub-menu.
• Click on the single-column icon on the left.
• As soon as you choose, the text you have selected will return to the single-column format that fills the whole page.

How to format columns in Google Docs?

Google Docs allows you to decide how your columns look. If you want to format your columns, you can do it with formatting options available in “Column Options”.

To format your columns,

• Highlight the text you wish to put into columns first, then click Format in the menu bar.
• Hover over the Columns sub-menu, and click More options.
• This will open up the “Column Options” dialog box. 
• You can select the number of columns you need (a maximum of 3) in the “Number of Columns” option.

• You can also set the spacing between columns (shown in inches), and check the box to determine you want a line to appear between columns or not.
• Once you set these options to your preference, click Apply to save changes.

Unfortunately, these column options are limited. If you want more control over the appearance of your columns in Google Docs documents, you can use a table to organize and manage your text.

How to add Multiple Columns in Google Docs?

Adding multiple columns to your documents in Google Docs using formatting options is limited to 3 columns. The default column formatting options have “Three columns” as the maximum number of columns which is excellent and enough for making newsletters, pamphlets, and brochures.

How do I make more than 3 columns in google docs

To Create three columns in Google Docs,

• First, highlight the text that you want to split up into columns.
• Go to the Google Docs menu bar and click Format.
• In the Format menu, hover over Columns, then click the three columns icon in the right.
• As soon as you click on this “three columns” icon, the text you selected will be split into three columns.

This is how we can add columns in Google docs especially multiple columns.

Add Multiple Columns In Google Docs using the table

Using a table to add multiple columns in Google Docs is the best workaround to create more columns in Google Docs.

When you create multiple columns using a table, all you have to do is, just type or paste the text, format it to get rid of the table border, and set where the text sits in the table.

To add multiple columns in Google Docs using a table,

• Click insert and hover over the table to choose the number of columns.
• Once you choose the number of columns, click on it.
• Type or paste the content.
• To take out the table outline, right-click anywhere in the table, and select “Table properties”.
• The “Table properties” dialog box will open. 
•  Click on the 1 pt dropdown under the Table border and select 0 pt. 

• Once done, click “OK”.
• This will remove the border around the table, making it look like the Doc has multiple columns.
• You can also remove the table border by changing the table color to “white’.

• Your text won’t automatically move from one column to the next column. So you have to copy and paste to get your text to the next column. 

How to type or move to other columns?

When you type on Google Docs Columns, only after the entire first column is finished, the cursor moves onto the next column. You can’t move over the second or third column until you finished the first column.

How to switch between columns in google docs 

• To type in another column, you can insert a column break.
• For inserting a column break, first, locate where you wish to insert a column break and place your blinking cursor. 
• This will become the endpoint of your current column and any text after this point will move into the next column.
• To add a column break, right-click on the position of your cursor, then click the “Column break” option from the menu that appears.
• As soon as you click on “Column break”, a column break will be inserted and all text after this inserted column break will move into the second or third column.

Or,

An important point to note down here is, the behavior of the Google Docs column i.e how it works is, the currently selected text is being continuous flows until the remaining page, and once finished, it moves to the second column.

To overcome this, if you want to use two separate columns, then you should use a table for a better experience.

How to make columns in google docs app

To be honest, there are no direct features available in android or if you are using your iPhone or iPad. But as a workaround, you try out the below steps.

• Open the docs app on your android mobile.
• Tap on the + button from the bottom of your mobile screen –> Select New document to create a new Google Docs document.
• Tap on the + or the insert button from the top.

• On the Insert window, tap on the table option and then mention the column as 2 and rows as 1 finally, click on the Insert table button to insert the table.

• Now, paste the needed text in column 1 and the remaining text on column2.

How to make two columns in google docs on iPad or iPhone

As I have mentioned already, there is no direct way as of now to make two columns in Google docs on iPad or iPhone. But as a workaround, you can add a 1 X 2 table to achieve the same functionality.

• Open the docs app on your iPhone or iPad.
• Tap on the + button from the top right.
• On the Insert window, tap on the table and then mention the column as 2 and rows as 1 and finally, click on the Insert table button.
• Now, You can paste the needed text in column 1 and the remaining text on column2.

How to add a Column Break in Google Docs

As we said, creating columns in Google Docs is not a difficult step to take. It hardly takes a few minutes once you know which options to follow. Once done, you might want to know more about how you can type in different columns without having to use the space bar or enter in order to reach the other columns. Well, this too can be done very easily with the steps given below. This feature is known as Column Break.

• Brings the cursor onto the end of the text where you wish to type in.
• Click on the Insert option on the menu bar.

• Tap on Break.

• Select Column Break.

As soon as you click on the option, you will now end up editing the next column. This is how you can edit your entire document super easily without having to shift or remove any text in any of the columns. Moreover, the spacing remains the same as well and there will be hardly any changes whatsoever.

How to add Line between Columns In Google Docs

Yet another feature that you can try out while you are done with creating the columns in your document. Well, the Column option allows you to add a vertical line in between the columns to organize it in a much more presentable way. Such options are used especially if you are creating a brochure, magazine content, newspaper, etc.

• Click on Format in the menu bar.
• Tap on Columns and then select More Options.

• Check the box beside “Line Between Columns”.

• Click on Apply.

As soon as you click on apply, you can visibly see the vertical lines between the columns. This helps to keep the document neat and presentable. Also, if you are not in need of those lines, you can simply go back and undo the settings and apply them to remove the lines.

How to change the Spacing between Columns In Google Docs

You can also choose to increase or decrease the space between two or three columns to make it took more tidy. This helps to even fit up more words into a specific column. Also, you can opt to create a column for only specific texts in the document. You can learn it all from the information given below as you read through and follow the steps.

• Tap on Format and open Columns.
• Select More Options.
• You can now set the number of columns you wish and also set up a size for spacing between the columns.
• Click on Apply.

You can simply repeat the method unless you get the right number for the spacing that looks visually appealing to you or at least presentable. Also, you can always go back to the default size that had been set from before to undo the changes made eventually.

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And voila! You can now add multiple columns and format them with ease! Simply follow the above steps for the Google docs add column! Hope you learn how to add column in google docs as well how to add multiple columns in Google docs easily and along with these.

Here is pretty much all you need to know on how to make multiple columns in Google Docs. If at all you are thinking why we need columns in the first place is because the newspapers, magazines, brochures, and a lot of other such formats require a presentable way of putting up content that is much easier to read. 

Also, once the columns are up you can fit in more content on each page. It is not at all difficult to create the columns. All the steps mentioned are tried and tested. Simply follow the steps for each of them. Everything has been mentioned based on the current scenario.

Apart from this, once you are done with all your work, you can save the document either to your system or turn on the auto-sync already which will save all the doc directly to the Drive. 

you have also learned Google Docs Columns On Part Of Page, Restore multiple columns to a single column, How do I make more than 3 columns in google docs, Add Multiple Columns In Google Docs using the table, How to type or move to other columns?, How to switch between columns in google docs, How to make two columns in google docs on iPad or iPhone.

Moving on, you do not need to format all the content on the doc, instead select a small section that needs formatting and make the changes that are needed. Furthermore, if you are still facing any more issues or have queries related to creating columns or simply anything related to Google Docs, you can let us know in the comment section below.