Making columns work together

[Travis]

I write reports formatted with a vertical line about 2.5" from the left edge
of the page. Section headings go on the left side of the line, the body of
the report goes on the right. I would like to be able to line up the top of
each heading (on the left) with the top of the first line of the
corresponding text (on the right).

I can't do it with text boxes, because:

a. I also use the table-of-contents feature
b. my reports span many pages and text boxes quickly get unwieldy
c. text boxes don't lend themselves to the kind of significant editing my
reports sometimes require.

The best I have been able to figure out is to set the left margin set at
2.5" and just move the section headings outside the margin. But that requires
the section heading to ride above the text rather than at the same level.
It's not awful this way as long as the section heading isn't too long, but it
would look better if I could get them to line up.

I'm not opposed to buying a book or pre-fabbed templates if this is too
complicated for a newsgroup Q&A, but I don't know where to look.

Suggestions? Thanks.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

You might see http://sbarnhill.mvps.org/WordFAQs/MarginalText.htm (note that
TOCs can see headings in frames).

Failing that, you could use a table, but be aware that Word doesn't like
long tables much, so you need to break it as often as possible (and of
course you'll start a new row whenever you need to synch the text (with a
new sidehead).