If you blog using Wordpress as your blogging software, you will know that it offers a lot of flexibility in design. You can run a blog, run a normal website, and even create a social networking site. You can also run a newspaper or magazine site using Wordpress.

There are specific elements that make a site more magazine-isque (if that's a word). Some of which have to do with the layout of the front page. Another characteristic of a magazine that you can now implement on your Wordpress magazine site is that of multiple columns of text in pages and posts.

If you have ever read a magazine, you will know what I mean. A normal Wordpress site will typically have only one column of content text much like any blog. If you read a magazine, you'll notice how there can be multiple columns like in the screenshot below:

multiple columns wordpress

Now with the proper plugin you can do this with Wordpress in posts and pages. The plugin is called "Magazine Columns" and it can be found in the Wordpress plugin directory (author's blog post). We know though, that for plugins found on Wordpress, we can just install them via our Wordpress dashboard. If you search for "magazine columns" it should come up as first on the list. Make sure the author is "c.bavota" for this particular plugin.

After installing the plugin, all you have to do to create multiple columns in pages and posts is to insert "<!--column-->" where you want to begin the next column (up to 5 columns):

columns wordpress

You'll also notice that there are added buttons in the HTML tab for easier implementation.  Using the "start columns" and "stop columns" buttons, you can easily have text before and after columns. The result could look like this:

columns wordpress

Here's a full screenshot of how my BloggerDoggie theme looks with multiple columns:

multiple columns wordpress

You may be asking, "And that's all there is to it?" Yes. Really.

Another cool part of this whole topic is that there is actually more than one plugin that does this for you. Similar plugins to try are:

  • WP Post Columns - If you visit the author's plugin homepage, you'll see that there are quite a few options via short codes.  This could be a positive or a negative depending on how easy you want the process to be.
  • WP Columnize - This plugin also has buttons in the HTML tab.  With them you can highlight the text and just hit the appropriate button.  Check out the author's plugin homepage.

Whichever plugin you use, you'll find you have quite a bit more flexibility. Using Wordpress for other anything other than blogging becomes a bit easier. I know you can mess around with tables in HTML but why would you if a plugin can do it for you?

Do you use columns in Wordpress to make it less like a blog? What method do you use?