In two columns layout, how to keep text in each column separate from the other

libreofficelibreoffice-writertext formatting

I am editing odt document in LibreOffice Writer. I have the following, very simple layout, it looks like this:

enter image description here

I would like to text in each column to stay separate from the other column.

So the same piece of text should look like this:

enter image description here

Now as you see in the picture above I simply used line breaks to create layout, but I don't want to do this because there's going to be text in second longer columns as well, so the whole layout is going to break each time I add something to one or other column.

Is there a way I can create desired layout in LibreOffice?

Best Answer

Don't use tables for non-tabular data.

There are better options

1. Use paragraph spacing and identation

enter image description here

To achieve this, select all the desired paragraphs and then right-click on "paragraph", the following dialog appears:

enter image description here

Or, as a much quicker shortcut, click on the ruler rightmost area and drag it to the left:

enter image description here

2. Use textboxes:

  • Activate the "drawing" tab (View -> toolbars -> drawing)
  • Click on the "text" icon
  • Drag to draw the area where you want your text to be
  • set the anchor propertiy to "as character" for it to stop flowing over the normal text
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