I have the following code which puts my Wordpress content into 2 columns (Bootstrap 3 framework). It splits the content at the 'read more' tag.
functions.php
function split_content() {
global $more;
$more = true;
$content = preg_split('/<span id="more-\d+"><\/span>/i', get_the_content('more'));
// first content section in column1
$ret = '<div id="column1" class="col-md-6">'. array_shift($content). '</div>';
// remaining content sections in column2
if (!empty($content)) $ret .= '<div id="column2" class="col-md-6"><p>'. implode($content). '</p></div>';
return apply_filters('the_content', $ret);
}
this puts it all in < p > tags etc. except for the first paragraph. All the filters/etc don't seem to affect the first paragraph of the first column, but works fine for everything else