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column Last modified: Monday, September 01, 1997

(1) On a display screen in character mode, a column is a vertical line of characters extending from the top to the bottom of the screen. The size of a text display is usually measured in rows and columns. (2) In spreadsheets, a column is a vertical row of cells. Spreadsheet columns are usually identified by letters. (3) In database management systems, column is another name for field. (4) In documents, a column is a vertical area reserved for text. Most newspapers, for example, contain four or more columns per page. Modern word processors and desktop publishing systems enable you to automatically divide a page into columns.