How do I change the color of Strikethrough without changing the color of the text?

One way to do this with Word 2007 is:

Insert -> Shape -> Line

Then change the line to red like this:

Drawing Tools Format -> Shape Styles -> Shape Outline -> Red.

However, if you add text to the top of the document (or to the start of a line), the red strike-through might "move" and need to be adjusted to the proper place again (by a mouse drag).  It is possible this way (but perhaps not very maintainable).

Following my own suggestion in a previous post, I now keep a document in my quick links type of toolbar.  The document has a couple of shapes (from Insert > Shapes) that I frequently use: a red transparent oval and red horizontal lines of various lengths.  When I want to use red strikethroughs, I copy and paste one of the lines that approximates the length I need, and then adjust the line length and position.  (In case anyone wants to try that, you may want to use the shift/right or left arrow key combination to expands or contract the length equally from both ends.)

I wonder what the "cost" to Microsoft of providing color strikethroughs would be (resources, hours, etc.).

Hey K:

While using the word "nonsense" may have been a little strong, and yes I will concede that using a red strikethrough is more user friendly, I will re-iterate it is a low demand feature. The average home user has only had access to color printers at a reasonable price for ca. 7 years ...  Businesses maybe a few years longer. Before that all printouts were B&W.  Even today, despite "paperless office" initiatives most people deal with printed paper rather than online copies.

Think back, the origin of "red strikethrough" probably goes all the way back to the 1800's or earlier with paper and pen records. It was easy enough to pick up a red pen and a ruler to make the strikethrough.  Even with typewriters it was relatively easy to buy a 2 color ribbon and backspace, switch ribbon color selection and strikethrough in red, switch color back to black.   Those options did not exist with the high volume line printers, did not exist with consumer dot-matrix printers, did not exist with laser jet printers. Sure, it has been a possibility with color inkjet printers since the mid 1980s, but early inkjet printers had other issues.

The simple reality is that the health industry, with this legal requirement, is just not a large enough part of MS's market to push developement of a solution. MS develops for the lowest common denominator, and slowly pushes out to fringe market requirements later.  Sorry, but that is the reality of Office.

Sure WordPerfect may have had the feature back in the 80's. But back then the market was several orders of magnitude smaller and it made sense for them to focus on the specific needs of specialist markets like medicine.

Rohn007,

I apologize in advance if the following correction is not received gratefully, but: I hope you (and other readers of this thread) find it helpful to be reminded that "its" is a possessive without an apostrophe. :-)

On the main topic: I frequently correct English usage and spelling from certain correspondents for whom English is not their first language, and I think the appearance of a  a red strikethrough would be an improvement over that of a black strikethrough.

One moderately cumbersome workaround would be to insert a line shape of the desired thickness, move it into position (perhaps format it as "In Front of Text"), copy it, paste it as many times as needed, move each copy into desired positions and change their length as needed.