How to format text on a page into two columns?

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
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Dear All,
I am a new user to Scrivener on macOS. I have my text in a text file but I wish to display the text over two columns on a page, the same way as one might see in a Bible. How can I go about doing this?
Thank you in advance,
Chris

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Welcome to Scrivener and the Forum!

Are you wanting two columns in the Editor, or on the output deliverable you compile to?

The former is likely not possible but others can comment of course. The latter is highly dependant on how you compile and output format you want. For the later, and if I wanted that, I’d compile to RTF and then load into Microsoft Word and do an easy format in 2-columns. Output to whatever from there. Simple.

Maybe a way to compile with some fancy settings or a template in Scrivener, or use LaTeX, but figuring all that out would take too much time away from writing, which is the point of Scrivener.

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For a quick Word-less variant of that idea: compile to rtf or docx format, then open in Pages and set the format to 2 columns. Resave in your desired format or use Print to PDF for pdf output.

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Yes. Pages (included with macOS) will do it. Word will do it and as I said, what I would use (out of habit). LibreOffice Writer (free of license cost) does it. Perhaps others. I think the point is to do it with a tool that does it simply as these ideas do. Probably hard with Scrivener.

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Mac Scrivener will compile to columns (up to 4 of them), but you can’t do it in the Editor.

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For compiling with columns, refer to §24.6.2, For Word Processing, in the user manual PDF. This can be easily turned on by:

  1. Opening File â–¸ Compile....
  2. Double-click on the compile Format you are using, in the left sidebar, to edit it.
  3. Select the Text Layout pane. Here you will find the column setup area.
  4. Give the format a better name and maybe save it to “My Formats” instead of the project alone, so you can make use of it in the future, and click Save.
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