Text columns (and rows) in Illustrator

Illustrator is traditionally seen as a drawing package and its easy to overlook some of its text capabilities. For instance did you know that you can break a text frame into columns in Illustrator?

Go to Type > Area Type Options and you'll get the following dialogue box where you can define the number of columns, gutter width and an overall text inset for the text frame. In addition there's a checkbox titled "fixed". If you resize the frame with this unchecked Illustrator will increase or decrease the width of the columns so there is always just the number you specified. If you check "fixed" Illustrator will keep the columns the correct width and simply add extra ones.

Plus,  everything you can do with columns you can also do with rows, making tables much easier to create in Illustrator.