How to remove columns in Word 2010

Columns are used in many types of documents, but they are most commonly used in newspapers, magazines, academic journals, and newsletters. In this lesson, you will learn how to insert columns into a document and create column breaks.

Table of Contents Show

Inserting columns
Adding column breaks
How do I turn off columns in Word 2010?
How do I delete columns and rows in Word 2010?
How do I remove columns in Word but keep the text?
How do I delete multiple columns in Word table?

Inserting columns

Columns and column breaks can improve your document's organization and increase its readability. They also allow you to utilize all of the available space on the page.

Optional: You can download this example for extra practice.

To add columns to a document:

Select the text you want to format.
Click the Page Layout tab.
Click the Columns command. A drop-down menu will appear.
Adding columns
Select the number of columns you want to insert. The text will then format into columns.

If you want to remove the columns, click the Columns command and select One for the number of columns.

Adding column breaks

Once you've created columns, the text will automatically flow from one column to the next. Sometimes, though, you might want to control exactly where each column begins. You can do this by creating column breaks.

It is easy to remove a column break in word, but not everyone knows how to quickly remove all column breaks in a long document. This tutorial is going to tell you several methods for removing all column breaks in word document.

Remove all column breaks one by one

Remove all column breaks with Find and Replace function

Remove all column breaks using VBA

Remove all column breaks with Kutools for Word

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Remove all column breaks one by one

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Remove all column breaks with the Find and Replace

1. Click Home > Replace to enable this utility.

2. Click More>> button to show more options. sees screenshot:

3. Place the cursor in the Find What field, and select the Column Break from the Special pull-down menu.

4. There will be a “^n” character in the Find What field, and click Replace All.

Remove all column breaks using VBA

Alternatively you can use a macro to remove all empty lines if you are good at VBA code, and you may follow the below instructions like this:

1. Press “Alt-F11” to open the Microsoft Visual Basic for Application window;

2. Click Module on the Insert tab, copy and paste the following VBA code into the Module window;

The VBA code of removing all column breaks:

Sub Delecolumnbreaks()
Selection.Find.ClearFormatting
Selection.Find.Replacement.ClearFormatting
With Selection.Find
.Text = "^n"
.Replacement.Text = ""
.Forward = True
.Wrap = wdFindContinue
.Format = False
.MatchCase = False
.MatchWholeWord = False
.MatchByte = False
.MatchAllWordForms = False
.MatchSoundsLike = False
.MatchWildcards = False
.MatchFuzzy = False
End With
Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
End Sub

3. Click Run Macro on the Run tab;

Note: If the Track Changes function is enabled in the document, this VBA cannot remove all column breaks of it.

Remove all column breaks with kutools for Word

Actually there is a more convenient and quicker way to remove all column breaks in word. You neither take complex operations nor need to learn VBA code, after installing Kutools for Word, only one click will help you quickly remove all column breaks in the whole or selection of current document.

Kutools for Word, a handy add-in, includes groups of functions to ease your work and enhance your ability of processing word documents. Free Trial for 45 days! Get It Now!

1. Please apply this utility by clicking Kutools > Breaks > Remove Column Breaks. See screenshot:

2. You will see all column breaks will be removed from the whole document.

This utility also can remove all column breaks from a part of the document, for more information about this utility, please visit here.

How do I turn off columns in Word 2010?

Removing columns In the Page Setup section, click the down arrow under Columns, then select More Columns. For Number of columns, you can type in a number or use the up and down arrows to select a number. The number entered or selected must be less than the current number of columns, if you want to remove columns.

How do I delete columns and rows in Word 2010?

To do this, select the row or column and then press the Delete key..

Right-click in a table cell, row, or column you want to delete..

On the menu, click Delete Cells..

To delete one cell, choose Shift cells left or Shift cells up. To delete the row, click Delete entire row. To delete the column, click Delete entire column..

How do I remove columns in Word but keep the text?

3 Answers.

Select the table..

Go to the Tables Tools / Layout tab on the ribbon..

Press Convert to Text..

How do I delete multiple columns in Word table?

If you want to remove more than one row or column, select a cell in each row or column you want to delete. Under Table Tools, click Layout, and then click either Delete Row or Delete Column.