stray dots in the corners

[JenK]

Hi,

I'm using Word 2007 and on some of the pages there are some stray 'dots'
just above the footer and below the header on some pages of my document. The
dots look like periods, but I can't seem to click on them/ highlight them or
anything. They are not in the header/footer, but they don't seem to be part
of the main body of the document either. When I print, the dots print. I
don't have any borders or shading.

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks!

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

Does this happen in all documents or just in that one document?

Does it happen in new documents?

If it happens in new documents, does it still occur if you start Word in
safe mode (hold the Ctrl key as Word is starting, then click Yes to starting
in safe mode).

 

[JenK]

It's just this document. I've never seen it in any other document, and it
doesn't happen when I create a new document.

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

If you've care to send me the document or a sample of it that demonstrates
the issue, I'd be happy/curious to take a look to see if I can tell you
what's causing the dots to appear. If so... send to herb at herb tyson dot
com, eliminating the spaces and making the appropriate substitution for
"at".

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

It’s document corruption! I can’t find any identifiable formatting
differences. However, there is some kind of corruption artifact that is
causing the dots to appear. On page 1 of the sample, if I select and delete
everything above “Item Classes and Subclassesâ€, the dot on page 1 goes away.
Deleting any subpart of that section does not zap the dot, nor does
stripping all formatting out of those lines. If you delete those lines one
by one, the dot remains until the last line is selected and deleted (tapping
Delete or Backspace isn’t sufficient, you have to select the lines—including
the last paragraph mark, before pressing Delete).

So, one way to fix the document would be to copy the lines that contain the
artifact, delete them, paste them back as unformatted text, and then
reformat them manually.

I tried to “launder†the document by saving in rtf and Word 2007 formats,
closing the document and then reopening, and converting back into a Word
2003 document, but the dot persisted in the resulting documents.

If I open the rtf document in WordPad, however, insert a space and delete it
(to make WordPad think the document has changed), then close/save, the
resulting document does not have the dots when reopened in Word. In a 75
page document, however, it’s possible that this laundering method will
introduce undesirable changes.

I hope this help!