Currently usng 5.2.0.4.
This started last week; never any problems before
Make your title short (a catch phrase). The description is unlimited in length. You have then plenty of space to describe your template structure. Use the edit links.
Which styles have defined? Or which built-in styles are you using?
Since you talk about templates, I assume you are familiar with Writer styles (paragraph, character, frame, page, list) and your template+documents are correctly styled. Is your template correctly identified in File>Properties.
Note that 5.2.0.4 is rather old and no longer supported. Current stable version is 7.0.3.1.
You can change the layout of a page and the orientation by going to: Format → Page style...
@Privacy_Dragon: dangerous! This affects the page of the cursor. May not be what OP wants. Better wait for additional information about his page styles and advise to change the right one.
Maybe (s)he accidentally saved that format as the default template?
If it happens for old and new documents, and always from page 2 onward, I suspect that the perceived “page with two columns” is really a two page spread.
See this:
That was the fix. Thanks very much