How to Split a Page in Word? 4 Easy Methods
(Note: This guide on how to split a page in Word is suitable for all MS Word versions including Office 365)
Microsoft Word is a great tool for reading. The layout and the tools it provides make reading lengthy paragraphs easy. One of the most used forms of formatting a document in Word is the Split Page formatting.
In this article, I will tell you how to split a page in Word using 4 easy ways.
You’ll Learn:
To download the sample Word document for reference, click on the button below.
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What Is Splitting a Page in Word and Why Do We Do That?
The term “Splitting a page in Word” refers to dividing the page into partitions along with its contents. The page can be split into multiple parts either horizontally or vertically.
The layout of text in Microsoft Word by default is the Print Layout. This layout makes the content one after the other from top left to bottom right as a whole. But, this format might not be suitable everywhere. Sometimes, different emphasis on different parts of text and content might be needed. Also, when printing this layout occupies multiple pages that might not be viable.
In such cases, splitting a page will help you emphasize different parts of text in a single page and lessens the need for additional papers when printing. Additionally, this gives you an overall aesthetic look which makes your page more presentable.
How to Split a Page in Word?
There are multiple ways to split a page in Words. Let us see them one after the other.
Using the Layout Option
This is a simple yet straightforward method to split a page into multiple columns in Word. This method is better when you already have the content and you want to split them.
- Open the Word document.
- Navigate to the Layout option in the main menu.
- In the Page Setup section, click on the dropdown in Columns.
- Select the number of ways you want to split the page into. In this case, let us split the page into 2. So, select Two from the dropdown.
- This splits the page into two columns equally.
You can also split the page into three or four columns depending on your choice. From the Columns dropdown in the Layout menu, select the number of ways you want to split the page.
Note: You can notice that when you split a page, the ending of the first column is started in the second column of the same page.
In case you want additional customizations while splitting the page, click on the More Columns option from the dropdown.
You can easily split a page using the default columns from the presets or specify the number of columns in the text box below. You can choose to insert a line in between the split content on a page. (britespanbuildings) You can emphasize the contents of a page by increasing the width and spacing of the columns.
Page and Section break greatly affect the splitting of text in the document. Note that when the page break is set as Next Page, the content continues in the first column of the next page and then populates the second column. When the page break/section break is set to Continuous, the content is split equally on the second page.
- You can change the Page Break or Section Break from the Layout menu under the Breaks drop-down.
Using Tables
This is another way to split pages in Word. By using a table, you can split the text into two or four ways depending on your choice.
- First, insert a table using the Insert main menu. From the Table dropdown, select the number of columns you want to add. Since we want to split the page into two columns, select one row and two columns.
- Using the extend button in the bottom right, you can extend the table to the desired length. You can move the table to your desired position by dragging the move button in the top right of the table.
- If you want additional settings to the table, right-click and select Table Properties. You can adjust the height, width, border, and alignment of the cell and table of your choice.
- Now, type the content in the individual cells.
Though the contents are filled in the cells, it still doesn’t look like a page split. We need to remove the table leaving the contents intact.
- To remove the table, navigate to Table Design.
- Select all the text.
- Under the dropdown from Border, select No Border.
- This removes the border and makes the page split into two.
In case you want to split the page into 4, insert two columns and two rows into your Word document. Then fill in the text, images, or content in each section of the table. Select all the text entered in the table. Now, navigate to the table design, and select No Border from the Border dropdown.
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Changing to Read Layout
If you intend to read a long-form document, you can change the layout of the page to Reading mode. This splits the page into two making it easy for you to read. An additional advantage of this option is that this only changes the layout while reading and you can always revert to the original layout.
By default, the layout of the Word document will be Print Layout. You can see them towards the right bottom of the document near the zoom bar.
- Click on the Read Layout and Microsoft Word automatically changes the layout.
Using Print
There might be some instances where you only need to export the Word document with split pages and keep the original document intact. In such cases, you can just split a page and export the Word document as a PDF without altering the original file.
- Navigate to the File menu and click on Print. This opens the Print pane towards the right.
- In the last dropdown, select 2 Pages Per Sheet and click on Print.
- This opens up a dialog box asking you to save the document. Choose the file location, enter a file name, and click Save.
- Now, you can open the file in the saved location and see the page split into two.
In case you want to add additional settings and customization to the split pages in the PDF file, click on the Page Setup setting in the Print pane to personalize the page to your liking.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How to split a page horizontally in Word?
You can split a page horizontally in Word using the Tables option. Insert a table with multiple rows and a single column. Enter the contents and delete the borders by clicking on No Borders in the Borders dropdown in the Table Design menu.
How do I only split particular contents of the page and not the whole page?
If you only want to split particular contents of the page, either select the contents and use the Layout option or create a Table and then fill in the content.
What is the best method to split a page in Word?
If you already have the content in the standard format and want to split the page, changing the layout using the Columns dropdown is better. If you have to create or insert new content, then choosing a table first and entering your content would be ideal.
Closing Thoughts
In this article, we saw how to split a page in Word using 4 easy methods. You can use the Layout option from the main menu or use tables to split a page into partitions. Additionally, you can use the Print option to export a split page or just change the page’s layout while reading. You can choose the method that suits you the best.
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Simon Calder
Chris “Simon” Calder was working as a Project Manager in IT for one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious cultural institutions, LACMA. He taught himself to use Microsoft Project from a giant textbook and hated every moment of it. Online learning was in its infancy then, but he spotted an opportunity and made an online MS Project course - the rest, as they say, is history!