Idle question about highlight colors

[Patty Winter]

This is something that's been mildly annoying (or at least confusing)
me for years. I've seen it happen in Word 2004, Word X, and maybe even
earlier.

When I select text in a Word document, it usually gets highlighted
with a light-blue color. But sometimes, the "highlight" is black,
with the text displaying in white. I have never been able to figure
out why Word does this. Right now, it's doing it in the last three
lines of a five-line paragraph, plus the rest of the text on that
page. The rest of the document highlights normally.

Anyone know what causes this?


Patty

 

[CyberTaz]

There are a number of reasons why selected content might display this way,
but the 2 most common I've seen are:

1- The content is actually in some type of Field, such as an Index or Table
of Contents, or

2- The content may be displayed against some sort of object that has a light
(or white) fill. This would include the use of a Fill from Format> Borders &
Shading as well as filled text boxes & AutoShapes.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Patty Winter]

There are a number of reasons why selected content might display this way,
but the 2 most common I've seen are:

1- The content is actually in some type of Field, such as an Index or Table
of Contents, or

2- The content may be displayed against some sort of object that has a light
(or white) fill. This would include the use of a Fill from Format> Borders &
Shading as well as filled text boxes & AutoShapes.

Neither of those has been the case when it's happened to me, but
thanks for the ideas, Bob!


Patty

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Patty:

Word's highlight algorithm is very simple: it simply "reverses" the current
'colour' of the selected text.

If the text you select has its shading colour set to "Automatic" you will
get the system-defined highlight (blue). If the colour is set to something
else (e.g. Grey...) you will get the reverse of that.

And Bob: Patty says your email is bouncing!

Cheers

Neither of those has been the case when it's happened to me, but
thanks for the ideas, Bob!


Patty

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

 

[Patty Winter]

Hi Patty:

Word's highlight algorithm is very simple: it simply "reverses" the current
'colour' of the selected text.

Hmmm, maybe that's something different in Word 2008. In 2004, when
I drag my cursor over text, the text color itself doesn't change; it
stays black or orange or green or whatever and shows through the light
blue highlighting. It's only on those occasions when Word decides to
highlight in black that the text reverses out to white. BTW, Word is
the only program I've seen this happen with; other programs (such as
Terminal that I'm using at the moment) only ever display the system
default light-blue highlighting. And Word only does it occasionally.

Sometimes I've thought that it was related to whether I had saved
changes recently, but (1) it doesn't routinely switch to black high-
lighting when I've changed text, and (2) today the black highlighting
was still there even after I had saved, closed, and reopened the file.

If the text you select has its shading colour set to "Automatic" you will
get the system-defined highlight (blue). If the colour is set to something
else (e.g. Grey...) you will get the reverse of that.

Are you talking about shading in terms of "Borders and Shading"? The
text I'm talking about has no borders or shading applied. The only
highlight color involved in this situation is the system default,
which is applied when I drag my cursor over the text.


Patty

 

[CyberTaz]

Yeah, unsolicited email sent to a spoofed addy normally does ;-)

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Patty Winter]

Yeah, unsolicited email sent to a spoofed addy normally does ;-)

Bob, I'm not understanding what you're saying. If you mean that
you've made up an address that anyone attempting to de-munge would
quite naturally send to Comcast, but it is not actually a valid
Comcast address, then that's really not a good way to create a
fake email address.

Please feel free to write directly to me, as this is not really
a list matter. My address is perfectly valid and has been for
years (as have been the previous addresses I've used on Usenet
since the 1980s). I rely on a good ISP and a bit of hand-tweaking
of my filters to deal with spam, rather than making it difficult
for legitimate correspondents to contact me.


Patty