Word: Why is the entire document converting to 3 columns instead of the small selection I want?

Question

Why is the entire document converting to 3 columns instead of the small selection I want?

Here is an example of what needs to be columnized:

This is what happens to the entire document when attempting to columnize the small selection of text:

This seems to be an ongoing error that has never been fixed. I experience a similar problem when writing books, too. A tiny portion of the document makes sense to be columnized, but when I attempt to do so, the entire document is converted. In what universe would anyone want such a thing to happen?!

How do we fix this?

How do I prevent this from happening?

I have been using tables as a workaround, but there are situations in which that solution may not work.

Thank you.

Answer 1

You have to make use of the Columns dialog box and specify that you want to add newspaper columns to selected text only. This will work in the full version of Word for Windows or MacOS, but not in other versions.