How to customize columns in Illustrator: 12 steps

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Adobe Systems' graphics editor, Illustrator, is a popular program for creating advertisements, 3D logos and printed materials. Although similar to Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator is especially prized among graphic designers for its typographic ability to style text. Among other things, you will be able to add color, texture, shading, graphics and columns. Columns help you organize your text similar to how it is divided in a newspaper. This article will walk you through how to customize columns in Illustrator.

Steps

Step 1. Launch the Adobe Illustrator application

Step 2. In the dialog box when the program starts, select whether to open an existing document or create a new document for printing

Step 3. If you haven't created a text layer yet, create a new layer for your text using the Layers Palette

To access the Layers Palette, open the Windows tab in the top horizontal toolbar and then select Layers from the drop-down menu. Click on the "Add New Layer" button at the bottom of the Layers Palette window.

Step 4. Enter or paste the text you want to be split into columns

Step 5. Select the text with the cursor

Step 6. Select the "Type" tab on the toolbar

Open Area Type Options. A dialog box will appear.

Step 7. Find the "Columns" section

This section is on the right side. Choose how many columns you need.

Step 8. Select the width of the columns

This option is called "Span". You can manually specify the width of the columns, or let Adobe Illustrator automatically split your columns evenly.

Check the “Fixed” checkbox if you want the column width to remain the same even after adding text, decreasing or increasing the size of the text box. The number of columns may change, but they will still remain the same width.
Leave the checkbox unchecked if you want the number of columns not to change and you don't care if the width of the columns changes when you increase or decrease the size of the text box.