I cannot remove highlights from Word 2010 documents.

Anonymous
2010-10-22T18:56:45+00:00

Highlights in Word 2010

I cannot remove highlights from Word 2010 documents.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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Stefan Blom 352K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
2011-08-20T12:51:19+00:00

For what it's worth, Ctrl+SpaceBar clears direct character formatting, and Ctrl+Q clears direct paragraph formatting applied to text.

In other words, it seems as if some sort of character formatting was applied to your text.

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Anonymous
2011-08-21T03:39:28+00:00

It sounds like shading was applied to a part of a paragraph.  It is then character formatting and Ctrl+spacebar will clear it. If shading is applied to the entire paragraph, it's paragraph formatting.  Ctrl+spacebar won't remove it,  but Ctrl+q will.

Pam

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Anonymous
2012-07-16T01:21:02+00:00

The replies above are useless for this very common complaint. Here's how to solve the problem:

PCs: Copy the highlighted text. Paste it with the icon that has the arrow on it. This preserves formatting EXCEPT highlighting is removed.

Macs: Copy the highlighted text. Use "Paste Preserving Formatting". Same result as above.

MICROSOFT: Get on the stick and address this pernicious bug! Remove Highlighting should be made to work. The product looks ridiculous otherwise. It's such an impressive product otherwise. Please get rid of this silliness.

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Suzanne S Barnhill 279.2K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
2012-06-19T17:38:51+00:00

You seem to have a lot of questions not related to the subject of the original post. It would be better for you to start a new thread and ask your specific questions about, for example, AutoText entries (which basically are created the same way as in past versions, using Alt+F3).

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-12-26T18:10:37+00:00

    ybaburing said:

    I've been a long time word 2010 use, and I've encountered the "highlight won't go away" issue very often. It is a bug, and non of the solutions in this thread that I have tried work to fix it (although cutting and using different paste options comes closest). I waste a lot of time on this bug. Microsoft, please fix it make the remove highlighting option work in all cases - it does not!

    Stefan said:

    Please share an example document that illustrates the problem, and I'd be happy to take a look. You can upload your example to Dropbox or OneDrive, make it public, and post a link here.

    Hello all.

    Here is a sample docx (part of a 120 page doc) with "stubborn shading". The problem for many is that, as we all know, documents can contain many different styles and formatting, rendering it a RPitA to cut and paste, Ctrl+Spacebar, Ctrl+Q, paragraph by paragraph, etc., or having to reformat fonts, size, bullets, bold, italics, underline, ..., ..., even if one could remember it all.

    In this sample, the only way to remove the shading is to select each paragraph without selecting the final ¶ (seen only with Show All--unknown function/feature to most Word users). Try it and see how "easy" it is to not select that last paragraph mark and still include the punctuation at the end. Now imagine doing that in a large portion of 120 pages... it does not mind line breaks. Also, notice that the shading color does not appear in the Word's color palette.

    Here is a link to another thread that has a n answer that might help some, if not many:

    Searching For Background Shading In MS Word 2010 Document (Don't let the title mislead you and read the last answer.)

    I did not quote it here so you can click on (Found this helpful) "Me too" on the right side, above the post.

    The solution provided works great. However, if the text contains different formatting, the text that differs in format or style from the selected text will not be cleaned. For example, select text in italics and only text in that font, size, in italics, not bold. or underlined. or hyperlink, etc., will be cleaned. But at that point it's only a matter of having to repeat it selecting different formats, if there are any sections in your document that you actually want to keep shaded.

    Thank you all for all the different ideas and attempted solutions, and for the feedback. Hope this helps.

    Cheers.

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