Cant delete text boxes

[RSunday]

I copied a number of text blocks from another document into a table.

With these text blocks I have also copied some text boxes (showing page
numbers in the original document...). Now these text boxes appear in my table
document.

I want to delete them - but somehow I cant.

Any suggestions (please be specific on what to do)?

 

[Stefan Blom]

What you are describing could be frames instead of text boxes. Activate the
header/footer area; then you should be able to select and delete the frames.
See also http://word.mvps.org/faqs/formatting/UnaccountablyIndented.htm.

If you are sure they are in fact text boxes, you should be able to use the
Select Object command to select and then delete them: In Word 2007, click
the Home tab, and click Select | Select Objects. You should then be able to
hold the left mouse button and drag to select the text boxes.

 

[RSunday]

When I select the object the "text box" menu appears - so I believe it is a
text box. They are not in the header/footer section.

I am using Word 2003.

I can drag the text box around - and it affects my table layout causing
pages to break. But I cant delete them...

I sent the document to another computer - here we could delete them - but
when the document was sent back to my computer - there were all there when I
opened the document..

 

[Stefan Blom]

What happens when you try to delete the objects? Is there an error message?
If you cut them instead, does that make a difference?

It is very strange that everything looks OK on the other computer... But I
guess that tells us that this might be a display issue rather than something
more serious.

Are the two computers using different Word versions? Printer drivers?

 

[RSunday]

....i simply cant delete them. No message, no nothing. They just dont go away...

Cutting makes no difference. The computers have the same version of Word.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I have had the experience of thinking I was unable to delete text boxes.
This happened when multiple text boxes were layered one over another. You
delete one and there's an identical one right under it, so it appears that
nothing has happened. Check the Undo list to see if it shows a Clear action.
If so, keep clicking the text box and pressing Delete. If this is the
problem, eventually you will get to the bottom of the stack!

 

[RSunday]

This was in fact the solution! Turned out that every text box was there three
times. So I had to delete every box again and again to finally get rid of it!

It was all complicated by the fact that every time I made a delete - my
cursor went to the top of the 40 page document - so in all the scrolling back
and forth I sometimes had missed a text box. On the other computer - it was
just trial-and-error investigation - and the user just happened to delte a
box as many times as needed. But there was no real finding out... Back on my
computer the boxes were there again... or maybe we just lost track of the
occurences and saw some other boxes...

But now: Problem solved! THANKS

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Glad that worked for you. It can be very puzzling!