I have a need to put text into two columns. I can make this area its own segment, but I cannot find the controls to make columns at all. Can Scrivener 3 format into columns?
No. No column functionalities.
You could use a table with invisible borders, but the wrapping would have to be manual…
(What I mean is that column/cell 1 won’t overflow into column/cell 2 automatically. You’ll have to decide where to partition your text between the two columns/cells.)
The reason being that Scrivener is not a WYSIWYG software. There is no page concept.
I believe there might be a way to do 2 columns at compile, but I can’t be sure; as I never had a need for it.
Probably because columns are a presentation issue and would be dealt with in Compile. If you must have (on screen) columns then maybe insert a table.
Yes, for exports to RTF and DOCX. Not in the Editor and not to other formats, and it would affect the entire export, not just a section.
@drmajorbob
What happens then if you compile a selection, say to RTF, two columns, then mark it as excluded from compile, replacing it with <$include> pointing to the result of that very first multi-column compile?
Could that be a solution? Allowing to compile only part of a project to columns?
Columns can be defined to start after the first document or after front matter. So you can accommodate journal formats that have a full-width abstract followed by two-column text, or you can have a magazine-type layout with full-width title page and ToC followed by columns.
But it’s not possible to do something more complex than that. For example, it’s not possible to give each chapter in a mostly two-column book its own full-width abstract.
The <$include> placeholder does not preserve formatting. In fact, it assumes that you’ll want to normalize the included snippet to match the destination document.
Once you reach this level of formatting complexity, it’s often a better use of time to simply transfer the project to a dedicated page layout tool.
This may or my not help, but when I wanted to set up something similar I used many, many tabs. It’s a nightmare but I think it might be what you need.
But then you still have to manage the columns’ content manually.
Column 1 will stretch indefinitely (by table or by tabs), until broken and part of it be pasted into column 2.
Far from ideal.
Not to mention how any editing (or at least larger than a tab) would mess it up big time in this case. (Or how one could even manage to import content into column 2 to begin with on second thought.)
I’d rather try to grow peas out of sunflower seeds. 
Completely fair. I hope you’re able to find a solution!
Well, for anyone who whishes to accomplish this:
Post-processing… Once you’ve created the content in Scrivener, just do it in a software that is actually designed to handle it.
Pretty simple if you ask me.
If you crave the column feel during content creation, try to satisfy yourself of a single column. (Use some block-quote-ish narrow formatting, and voilĂ .)
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