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Suzanne S. Barnhill Suzanne S. Barnhill is offline
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Default How have 2 columns without using second column?

I can see what you mean, but I don't think there's any way to do what you
want quite the way you say. If you paste the text into a table as is, you'll
end up having to repeatedly split cells (or insert new rows) and drag text
into the new cells. What you could try instead is this:

Assuming you have multiple paragraphs of text that you want to put in a
table, and that you want each paragraph in its own cell, all in the left (or
right) column, the other column left empty, then you can do it by
converting.

The trick is that you want Word to make each paragraph of text a cell, but
you will also need empty paragraphs to create empty cells. If you've set up
your manuscript "wrong" (in typical user fashion) with an empty paragraph
between paragraphs to create a blank line, then you're actually all set for
this exercise. If you've created it correctly, with no empty paragraphs,
then you'll need to add them; you can do this by using Find and Replace to
replace ^p with ^p^p.

Once you have text paragraphs and empty paragraphs alternating, select the
text and use Table | Convert | Text to Table, separating at paragraphs. Word
will suggest either one column or some wild number, so change the number of
columns to 2. If you want the left column blank, begin your selection with
an empty paragraph; if you want the right column blank, start with a text
paragraph and end with an empty paragraph. Word will create a two column
table with all the text in the left (or right) column, one paragraph per
row.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
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"Andy" wrote in message
...
On 16 Aug 2006, Suzanne S. wrote:


Hmm. Could have sworn I'd posted, but I think I was thinking of
another thread in which someone wanted a column of empty space for
inserting handwritten notes. I think you are trying to insert
comments in the actual Word document, though, so my article at
http://sbarnhill.mvps.org/WordFAQs/MarginalText.htm might offer a
better way.



Really good article. Thank you.

Can I ask one extra thing. If I have a lot of text in another file and
I create a 2 column table in MS Word (with lots of rows) then when I
paste all the text goes into a single cell of the table.

Is there a way to go through this text and insert a "row dividing
lines" (which would go right across the table) at various points?

I hope can see what I mean.