Get Rid of a Horizontal Line in Microsoft Word

Occasionally in Microsoft Word a horizontal line appears and seems to stick around no matter what you do. You can't select it, you can't delete it—nothing seems to work. Don't worry, it's not a bug, it's a feature—it's actually an auto-generated border! We'll show you how to get rid of the line on the document, and prevent it from happening automatically in the future. This will work on all recent versions of Word on both the PC and the Macintosh. Read on!

Steps

1. Place your cursor directly above the line. You cannot actually select the line, as it's not really "there." It's a border that was automatically generated when you typed three hyphens (-), underscores (_), equal signs (=), or asterisks (*), then pressed Return.
2. Click on the Format menu. (Note: in Word 2007 select the Page Layout menu and then look for the Page Background portion of the ribbon and click on Page Borders. Go to tab Page Border and select None. Do the same for tab Borders) Select Borders and Shading...
3. Turn off the border. In the Borders and Shading window, click on the "None" button. The line should disappear when you do.
   • If the border does not disappear at first try these steps:
   • Select any text immediately before or after the line.
   • Select Borders and Shading from the Format menu, as before.
   • In the lower right hand corner, from the "Apply to:" menu, if "Paragraph" is selected then select "Text," or if "Text" is selected then select "Paragraph."
   • Click OK and the line should disappear.
   • If the line simply moves up one paragraph, either repeat this process until it completely disappears, or select the entire document repeat the process.
4. Note: In Word 97, the menu is called Autocorrect, and the check box is called Borders.

Tips

• You can adjust your "AutoCorrect" settings to avoid converting three hyphens (-), underscores (_), equal signs (=), or asterisks (*) plus a line break into this hard to remove line. Go to "Tools", select "AutoCorrect", and activate the "Autoformat As You Type" tab. Deselect "Borders" under "Apply As You Type".
• To rid a Word 2007 document of unwanted lines that are PAGE borders:
  • Ctrl-A to select the entire document
  • Click on Page Layout menu
  • Click Page Border (in Page Background section of the ribbon)
  • Click on Page Borders tab; click None
  • Click on Borders tab; click None; click OK
• To rid a Word 2007 document of unwanted lines that are PARAGRAPH borders:
  • Highlight the problem paragraphs (or Ctrl-A to select all paragraphs in the document)
  • Click on Home menu
  • In the Paragraph section of the ribbon, click on the Borders icon in the bottom right corner of the section (square box cut into 4 windows)
• You can adjust your "AutoCorrect" settings to avoid converting three hyphens (-), underscores (_), equal signs (=), or asterisks (*) plus a line break into this hard to remove line.
  • Click on Office button (4-color MS Office logo to left of Home menu)
  • Click on Word optI button (@ very bottom)
  • Click Proofing
  • Click AutoCorrect Options.... button
  • Click AutoFormat As You Type tab
  • Uncheck Border lines box in the Apply as you type section
  • Click OK twice

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Sources and Citations

• PC Mag

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