One or multiple text columns?

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In most cases, having a single text column is perfectly OK.

Layouts that feature multiple columns can sometimes be more user-friendly but often result in some extra work for the author.

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Online content

In online content, always use a single text column for the content. If you have multiple text columns, users may need to scroll up and down multiple times, which is unacceptable.

Use a second column only for navigation (the table of contents, the index, search, related topic links, and so on).

If you need to place particular information side by side, use a table.

Printed content

In printed content, base your decision on your authoring tool. Not all tools provide adequate support for multi-column layouts. If your authoring tool doesn’t support multi-column layouts, it’s usually OK to stick with a single-column layout. Don’t attempt to push your tool beyond its limits by applying dubious workarounds. This will get you into trouble.

If your authoring tool does support multiple text columns, you have several options:

Single column

This is the standard layout. If you don’t have much experience with template design, it can save you lots of time and trouble. It’s also the most economical version if your document will consist mainly of text and if you need a lot of space for large pictures and tables.

The disadvantage of a single-column layout is that it often produces very long lines of text, which may hurt readability.

 

Margin column plus single column

In this scenario, the width of the margin column is about 25% to 33% of the page width. You can add extra navigational information or extra comments in the margin column.

This layout supports selective reading (skimming) and is, therefore, especially adequate if you have a lot of reference information and want to use the margin column as a navigation tool.

The disadvantage is that this layout needs a lot of space, so it makes your document longer in terms of the number of pages.

Depending on how you use the margin column, this layout may also be incompatible with a single-source-publishing approach. It can be difficult to use the same text source to generate online content in only a single-column layout.

 

Two or more unsynchronized columns (“Lift”)

If you need to include a lot of pictures and have only short texts, this layout gets more content onto one page than a single-column layout. It doesn’t waste any space to the right and to the left of the pictures.

If the bulk of your content, however, consists of text, this layout will result in a very large number of line breaks, leaving only a few words in each line. This can make it hard for users to read a longer section of text. In addition, you can’t include any large pictures and tables. Their maximum size is always restricted by the column width. This can cause additional readability problems.

 

Two synchronized columns (“Twin”)

Here, you have one column exclusively for pictures and one column exclusively for text. You can always position the text right next to the corresponding picture. This can be a good solution, particularly to illustrate the steps of procedures.

The disadvantage of this layout is that it only works if you always have about the same amount of pictures and text. If you don’t, the “twin” layout takes up a lot of space and increases the number of pages, bloating the document.

 

How much space should you add between columns?

If column spacing is too small, readers sometimes accidentally continue reading in the wrong column.

If column spacing is too large, the text loses its coherence. What’s in the next column then doesn’t seem to belong together with the text in the previous column.

If column spacing is too large, the text columns may also become too narrow so that there are too many line breaks.

As rules of thumb, make the space between two columns:

approximately the same size as an empty line plus 2 points

approximately the same size as the string “mmi” written in the used font

To separate the columns more clearly, you can optionally add a fine line between them.

Be aware of the fact that the line adds some extra clutter to the page.

To reduce the visual impact, don’t make the line black but use a light shade of gray.