Word TAB INDICATOR missing

Anonymous
2014-05-14T08:16:58+00:00

The TAB INDICATOR now shows only as a blank icon and no tabs show on the ruler. My tab indicator and tabs were fine until recently. Running Word 2013 on Win 8. How can I fix this, please?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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Jay Freedman 208.3K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
2014-08-21T21:24:31+00:00

The fix for this bug has been released as KB2883058 as part of the August 2014 updates. If you have Office 365, the fix will be included in the August automatic updates; otherwise it will appear in the August Patch Tuesday downloads in Windows Update or can be obtained from the link above.

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Stefan Blom 353.5K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
2014-07-27T16:27:39+00:00

There is an issue causing tab stops and indent indicators to disappear from the ruler in Word 2013. The problem is being investigated by the Office team, and a fix is expected. Meanwhile, the following are workarounds recommended by Microsoft:

  • Start Word first, with a blank document, and then open the document you are going to read or edit.​
  • Avoid having a table as the first item in a document (at present it appears that this is the cause of the problem).

While other procedures may clear the problem temporarily, none is a permanent fix, and they do not address the underlying problem issue.

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-06-06T09:53:14+00:00

    Just to say this did the trick for me.

    After a software upgrade or fiddle  by our IT support I lost the tabs, going to personalisation  there was an unsaved theme.

    Changing the theme to Windows 7 as described brought the tabs back.

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-06-03T14:11:01+00:00

    Thank you, Stefan. As you said, the issue is sporadic. Also, not only did the indicator disappear, but when you go into the HOME tab, Paragraph group, Dialog Box Launcher, Indents and Spacing tab, to change indents, you could not enter anything from there either to fix an undesired indent. If it happens again, I'll take screen shots.

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  3. Stefan Blom 353.5K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2014-06-03T13:59:43+00:00

    I have sent a message to the Office team. We'll see what happens. Of course, it's a problem that the issue can't be consistently reproduced.

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