How to fix Highlighting paragraph MSWord 2021??

myoldhk 0 Reputation points
2026-06-05T07:43:58.35+00:00

Hi,

I have Office 2021 Pro, and 2019 on other device. all the settings are the same. Its on windows 11.

Issue I'm having is the 2021 Word will NOT highlight a paragraph either mouse or keyboard, yet works fine on 2019.

I've tried every fix i can find, mouse settings, keyboard settings

No restrictions No addons

still does it in Safemode

I have repaired office,

I have re installed office.

tried different mouse

tried different ports

I can highlight A word, A line, just cant do more than one line at a time,

it works and highlight fine in other word style APPS just NOT MSOffice 2021 pro retail.

This happens on New Blank Page and anything being opened.

Anyone Suffer this and have a Fix for me?

Thanks

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows
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AI answer

2026-06-05T07:44:12.4866667+00:00

The behavior described (cannot visibly highlight more than one line, but single words/lines work and other apps are fine) matches known display/driver issues rather than a Word setting problem.

Based on the provided context, the effective fix is to remove the problematic display driver so Word can render selections correctly again:

  1. Use the display vendor’s cleanup/removal utility (for example, AMD Cleanup Utility if using an AMD GPU) to completely uninstall the current display driver.
  2. Reboot the system when prompted.
  3. After reboot, allow Windows Update to install a compatible display driver, or install a current driver from the GPU manufacturer’s site.
  4. Open Word 2021 again and test selecting multiple lines/paragraphs with mouse and keyboard.

If the issue persists after driver cleanup and reinstall, also ensure Windows and Office are fully updated, as outdated or incompatible device drivers are explicitly called out as a cause of Office display/selection issues.

References:

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  1. Stefan Blom 353.6K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2026-06-05T08:50:48.44+00:00

    First, restart the affected computer, if that hasn't been done recently. If the problem remains, test if this could be related to the display of highlighted/selected content. In other words, is it possible that the text actually becomes selected although there are no visual clues on the screen? To test this, after having tried to select a text range, press Ctrl+C (to copy); then go to a different location in the document and press Ctrl+V. Does the content paste successfully? If it does, go to the PC manufacturer's web site and look for an updated video driver.

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