Word 2007 Lines and Borders
Lines and Borders in Word 2007
We have had reports of people having problems with lines appearing in Word documents and not being able to remove them. To learn how to deal with this, you need to understand Lines and Borders in Word 2007.
Boxes
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In a new blank document create a few paragraphs by pressing ENTER a few times, and select some of the paragraphs.
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Select the Page Layout tab and in the Page Background group click Page Borders.
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The Borders and Shading dialogue will be displayed with the Page Border tab selected. If you were to make selections here, they would indeed apply to the entire page.
Select the Borders tab, and now any selections will apply to the selected text.
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Under Setting select Box.
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Click OK.
A box will be drawn around the selected text. Note that you could have used the Shading option to fill the box with a background colour.
Note that you can't select the box and delete it. You can, however, drag the edges.
To subsequently delete the box:
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Click anywhere inside the box.
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Select the Page Layout tab in the ribbon, and click Page Borders.
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In the Borders and Shading dialogue select the Borders tab.
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Under Setting select None.
The box will be removed.
Lines
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To make a line appear in a document we don't need to select any text. Just ensure that you know which paragraph your insertion point is in.
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Select the Page Layout tab and in the Page Background group click Page Borders.
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The Borders and Shading dialogue will be displayed with the Page Border tab selected.
Select the Borders tab.
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In the Preview area click on the bottom border (as shown) or click the Bottom Border button.
Note that under Setting the option selected will become Custom.
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Click OK.
A line will now be drawn under the current paragraph. Again, you can't select it to delete it, but you can drag it.
To remove the line:
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Click in the paragraph above the line.
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Select the Page Layout tab in the ribbon and in the Page Background group click Page Borders.
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Select the Borders tab.
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Under Setting select None.
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Click OK.
Note that, in theory, someone could click in a paragraph and select the top border rather than the bottom border. If this happens and you follow the instructions in the previous paragraph, you will find that None is already set for the Setting. In this case you must:
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Click in the paragraph below the line.
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Then select the Page Layout tab in the ribbon and in the Page Background group click Page Borders.
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Select the Borders tab.
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Under Setting select None.
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Click OK.
Quick lines
Finally note that there is a quick way to automatically create a bottom border line for a paragraph. Type three hyphens --- and then press ENTER.
The paragraph will disappear and a bottom border will be applied to the previous paragraph. There is also an orange lightning strike icon.
If you click that icon the following options will be available:
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Undo Border Line
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Stop Automatically Creating Border Lines
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Control AutoFormat Options...
You can also stop automatically creating border lines by:
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Click the Office button in the top left, and select Word Options.
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The Word Options dialogue will be displayed. In the left-hand menu select Proofing.
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Click the AutoCorrect Options button.
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In the AutoCorrect dialogue ensure that the AutoFormat As You Type tab is selected.
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Under Apply as you type ensure that Border lines is switched off.
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Click OK to close the AutoCorrect dialogue.
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Click OK to close the Word Options dialogue.
Finally, if you have created a Border with the quick mechanism, you can subsequently delete it using the mechanism described above:
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Click in the paragraph above the line.
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Select the Page Layout tab in the ribbon and in the Page Background group click Page Borders.
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Select the Borders tab.
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Under Setting select None.
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Click OK.