Vertical gray bar down left margin. Why?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date
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Guest

I’m using Word 2003. I opened a brand new template I’d just created. At
some point during my editing a vertical gray bar appeared in the left margin.
It goes the entire length of the page and appears on every page. It looks
like a change bar. I’ve look high and low in Word for a setting for change
bars and found none. I scoured Word Help for an entry on change bars and
found none. I have verified that Markup and Track Changes are turned off.

I’ve run out of ideas. Can anyone give me one? Thanks.
 
The settings for change bars are on the Track Changes tab of Tools |
Options, but if Track Changes is turned off, that should not be what it is.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
OK, I found the setting for change bars (didn't see it the previous times I
opened that window). I set the "Changed lines" setting to "none." No effect
in the document.

Also, the vertical gray bars do not show up in a printout.
 
It sounds like a drawing in a header. If you view headers and footers (a)
does it become black rather than grey and (b) can you select and delete it?
 
If it doesn't print, could it be just text boundaries (Tools | Options |
View) ? But you'd see those all the way around your page. If you're in
Normal view, it could be the style area set very narrow (also on the View
tab).

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
Checked the settings as you suggested. No boundaries are turned on. Under
"Formatting marks" I unchecked everything and there was no effect on the gray
bars.

Also, the gray bars only show up in print view.

Further details: The gray bars showed up after I had pasted a large block
of text from another Word file. The file from which this text came was an
old file that's been circulated for a long time. It was used as an informal
"template" to generate a boilerplate document. The numbering had gotten
messed up, so I created a brand new "real" Word template with simplified
numbering based on paragraph styles. Before copying the text from the
original document, I cleared all the numbering out of the paragraphs. Then I
copied the text (about 60 pages worth), pasted it in a new document based on
the new template, and was recreating the numbering when the gray bars
appeared.
 
I had tried that. When I view headers & footers, the gray bar remains gray
and doesn't select when I click on it.

One of my other postings has more details on how this document was created
if you want more information. Thanks.
 

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