I set up a document with two columns in Word 97. Is there a way to move between columns?
Press Tab to move forwards; press Shift + Tab to move backwards. If you are working above the table, use the down arrow key to get into the first cell.
Note: Pressing Tab in the last cell inserts a new row.
Depending on where you are positioned and what you want to do, the left and right arrows should also take you to the next and previous cells.
Left: will always take you back one character. If your position is the first character in a cell, it will take you back to a point following the last character in the previous cell (either in an adjacent column or in the last column of the previous row).
Right: will always take you to the next character. If your position is the last character in a cell, it will take you to the first position in the next cell except that in the Word tables, there is a separating character to the right of the rightmost cell and going Right places you there. If you attempt to enter data, you will get an error “Not a valid action for end of row.” Hitting the right arrow one more time without entering data takes you to the first character of the first cell in the first column in the next row.
The Up and Down arrows will move you to cells above or below your current position in the same column. If there is already text in the cell, the Up and Down arrows will place you (ve-e-e-e-ry approximately) in the same proportional location in a cell. (So that you are positioned after the W in “While” and arrow down to a cell that begins “jive”, the cursor will appear between the “v” and the “e”. Since it is based on proportional fonts, results may vary by font.)
The OP was talking about columns, like newspaper style, not tables, I think.
There isn’t a keyboard shortcut to move between columns, as Word treats them as a continuous text flow as far as I know. If you view in Normal rather than Page Layout, the text just continues down the screen.
To go to the “next” column, just mouse-click on the spot.
Cheers