Bullet and numbering is greyed out, can't click.

[Guest]

Occasionally, and I have no idea why, when trying to add a bullet or number,
the drop down box under format for "bullets and numbering" is greyed out when
my cursor is on that line, and I am not able to select it. I've gone so far
as to delete the entire section and retype, with no luck. I notice that if I
move the cursor up a line or two that I once again have the ability to select
bullets and numbering. However, what appears to be random, on certain lines I
do not have the ability to select bullets and numbering. This is VERY
frustrating. Can anyone help? I would be glad to talk on the phone, I need to
solve this problem. Thanks.

 

[Cindy M.]

Hi =?Utf-8?B?QmFycnkgSHVsbA==?=,

Occasionally, and I have no idea why, when trying to add a bullet or number,
the drop down box under format for "bullets and numbering" is greyed out when
my cursor is on that line, and I am not able to select it. I've gone so far
as to delete the entire section and retype, with no luck. I notice that if I
move the cursor up a line or two that I once again have the ability to select
bullets and numbering. However, what appears to be random, on certain lines I
do not have the ability to select bullets and numbering. This is VERY
frustrating. Can anyone help?

Have you, perhaps, activated document protection at the times when the command
is unavailable?

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 17 2005)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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[Cindy M.]

Hi =?Utf-8?B?QmFycnkgSHVsbA==?=,

that did not solve my problem. I have never
used the document protection. Even so, I attempted to turn it on and off in
the areas that were "unclickable", still with no luck. In some lines I am
able to click numbering, and yet when I move the cursor a position either
right or left, I am no longer able to click numbering. If I delete the entire
area around the unclickable position(s), the unclickable position moves to
the edges of the area I just deleted. It's very odd. I was able to work
around through trial and error, I am able to at least find one clickable
position on each line, even those with this problem, and therefore with the
cursor in a clickable position, can click numbering, subsequently I am able
to number each line that needs to be numbered. However, this whole episode of
not being able to click numbering whenever I chose is puzzling.

Odd, indeed. And the lines contain nothing other than "plain text"? No fields,
for example?

It's possible the document's internal structures have been damaged if you're
seeing the problem in only this one document. Which version of Word do you have,
and was the document created in the same version?

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 17 2005)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or reply
in the newsgroup and not by e-mail

 

[Cindy M.]

Hi =?Utf-8?B?QmFycnkgSHVsbA==?=,

Yes Cindy, this is odd. I checked the fields and there is nothing other than
text. I did however, originally cut and paste the document from my company's
web site in order to do some editing. I was wondering about some sort of file
damage as well. Another interesting point, I discovered that when I change
the document view, between normal, print, and outline view, even keeping the
cursor in the same position, that sometimes the ability to click or not comes
and goes. I found that by having the document in outline view sometimes I am
able to overcome this problem, but switching back to print view the problem
reappears. By the way, this problem is in at least 10 places in my document.
Weird huh? Maybe I need to reload office. I am using office 2003.

Mmmm. Could indeed be something coming from pasting from a web site.

If you're game, there are a couple of tests we could try. For example: if you
select such a paragraph, Edit/Cut, then Edit/Paste Special and paste as plain
text, does the problem go away for that paragraph?

How about if you save the document as a web-page? In RTF format? Does it go away
in either case?

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 17 2005)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or reply
in the newsgroup and not by e-mail

 

[jcridge]

I also came across this problem and tried the .RTF candidate solution. It appears that even this is insufficient to remove some underlying formatting and/or other unknown issues.

I achieved a solution by
- copying all my text to MS Notepad . This ALWAYS removes every sort of complication that other users might have introduced and seems to be the best way to re-construct any problematic Word doc.
- re-copying the plain text back to a new 'clean' MS Word document and editing to required content
- editing out the junk text from the original document
- copy pasted the clean MS Word content into the original document