how do I get rid of this blue background in the text?

Anonymous
2011-08-20T13:29:03+00:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10736018@N05/6062088672/in/photostream

I was given a file to update and modify by a partner in a project. it contains several instances of this word having a blue highlight in the background. I don't want to waste ink in my own color printer, and the final version of this is going to be printed on a black & white laser printer.

How do I get rid of the blue background in word 2007? The "text highlight color" control will override it with any color but white, which isn't shown. Choosing "no highlight" has no effect. The "font color" changes the text from black to some other color, but has no effect on the blue.

How do I get rid of the blue?

==Edit, posted 5 minutes later=

Nevermind, I just deleted the stupid text and retyped it. I'd still like to know how it was done however.

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HansV 462.7K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
2011-08-20T14:42:46+00:00

It looks like text shading - you can change it in the Borders and Shading dialog (click the Borders dropdown in the Paragraph group of the Home tab of the ribbon, and select the last option: Borders and Shading; then activate the Shading tab)

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Anonymous
2011-08-20T14:42:42+00:00

Hi

One thing you don't mention is shading.  Shading can be applied to text characters not just whole paragraphs, depending on what is selected when it is applied.

Shading is the button with the paint pot in the Paragraph group of controls, on the Home tab.

If you ever have problems like this again try using Reveal Formatting to show you what effects are applied to your text.  Just put your cursor in the text and press Shift + F1 and the panel will display all the aplied settings.

Hope this helps

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-03-30T01:39:29+00:00

    None of this helped me. I had copied some text that was saved on a HTML page. (I had lost my old document.) So I've been trying to take the HTML version and put it back into a word 2007 .doc. When I paste it has an automatic highlight to it that will not delete.  I have tried to white it out with the instructions given here, but it doesn't change anything. This is a novel I had written and I really don't want to re write the ENTIRE thing!  It's just way to big!  How do I fix this problem?  Do I have to suck it up and rewrite it anyway?

    If it is just text without formatting, I'd suggest you try this procedure:

    1. copy the text onto the clipboard.
    2. open the Notepad program.
    3. paste it into Notepad.
    4. save it (as a .txt file).
    5. close notepad
    6. open something else and copy some random thing on the clipboard to clear it.
    7. close that something else, and open the .txt file you created in step 4
    8. copy it onto the clipboard
    9. paste it back into Word.

    That should strip it of the formatting including that background. It won't work if there are tab stops or other formatting.

    Doing the above on my original document would have destroyed the formatting.

    I'm only able to really view threads & replies on the weekends these days.

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  2. Suzanne S Barnhill 279.5K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2011-08-22T04:26:23+00:00

    Confusingly, Word uses the paint bucket icon for two different functions: shading for text and fill color for AutoShapes. You have to use the right one for a given application.

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  3. Anonymous
    2011-08-21T09:23:57+00:00

    Thanks, I didn't realize the paint icon was for text, I thought it was the paint bucket tool from previous versions of Word for manipulating graphics.

    Part of my problem is that I was trained on Word 97 and that most things were unchanged through Word 2003, but now lots of things have changed in Word 2007 and Word 2010, which I just got to experience for the first time today when the power was flickering (I have surge suppressors, but I don't have a UPS, so powered down my system when the lights kept going out for a second or two), so I went to the library and found they had just upgraded to 2010.

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