Adding Sidebars To a Word Document

June 30, 2010 - 4:59 PM

Summary: When designing your document, you may want to use sidebars like you see in magazines and some books.

In publishing, sidebars are used extensively, you often see them in magazines and sometimes in books. A sidebar is generally a short, concise information of a subject related to the main text, but which is called out in a boxed format to the side of the main text. Generally if they were included in the main text they would distract from the information being conveyed.

In Word, the usual way of creating sidebars is to use a text box that contains text. To create a sidebar, follow these general steps:

1. Switch to Print Layout view or Page Layout View depending on the version of Word you are using, if you are not already in that viewing mode.
2. Display the page on which you want to place the sidebar.
3. Decide whether you want the sidebar on the left or right side of the page.
4. Add a text box that will contain the sidebar text.  Make sure you have a border around your text box.
   
   
   

Your sidebar has been placed, and you can type text in the box that defines the sidebar.