Unwanted lines of dots

[bhowell]

I periodically get an unwanted line of square black dots across my page in Word 2004, and it's driving me crazy.

It's not like when I type a few hyphens and Word auto-completes the entire line for me (although I would also love to turn that one off forever, too). Rather, this one seems to crop up all on its own, often right on a page break, and most of the time I can do nothing about it: I can't select the dots, pressing delete doesn't help, and cutting a wider section of text (from above to below the dots) doesn't help, either (the line of dots just reappears somewhere else nearby). All I can do is start a new document. It's really frustrating.

And right now, even cutting and pasting just the "good" part of the text (i.e., no dots) into a new doc still gives me dots in the new doc.

How can I stop this from happening anymore?

 

[CyberTaz]

Second issue first - The "auto-completes" issue is easy enough to resolve
Go to Tools> AutoCorrect - AutoFormat As You Type, then clear the check for
Symbol characters (--) with symbols (­)... as well as any others that might
annoy you Many recommend that you clear them *all*.

As to the main issue: From your description it sounds like you're working in
Normal View, in which case the dotted line does in fact represent a page
break. However, it would clearly be labeled as such. What view are you
seeing this in? Does it display in Page Layout view? Does the line show up
in Print Preview or actually print? Can you better pinpoint what triggers
these lines to appear? What else can you think of that might be pertinent?

Make sure you have Office & OS X fully updated. If you haven't repaired disk
permissions after an OS update do that as well - although I doubt it will
have any effect on the problem. It's just good to be more certain we're
starting from a firm foundation

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

 

[bhowell]

Thanks for your reply, Bob.

The dots happen according to no rule of thumb that I can perceive. They appear whether in Normal View or Page View. (BTW, they're not like the Normal View's page break dots; these are fat black squares.) And they are sometimes, but not always, associated with page breaks.

In Normal view, they overprint the usual page break dots until they reach the margin, at which point they stop and the usual page break dots continue to the edge of the doc.

Yes, the line of fat square dots shows up in Print Preview, and yes, it prints. Worst of all is the apparently random appearance. Gad!

I am working on the latest Word 2004, and disk permissions have been repaired. Oh yes, and it's happened on several different Macs I've used (most often on my wife's). Not super often, to be sure, but it's very annoying when it does happen.

And, oh yes, I can't seem to make the fat black dots appear just now -- to be expected, I suppose, now that you're looking. I have been playing with an existing doc that has the little buggers, but I haven't been able to do anything that makes new ones, nor have I been able to remove them (except by selecting all and choosing "clear formatting" from the styles drop-down -- a strategy that has some obvious drawbacks when working with a highly formatted doc).

Any other ideas?

 

[John McGhie]

It's a paragraph Border.

Look in Format>Borders and Shading...

It may be part of a style, or it may be applied as direct formatting. But
it's a paragraph border. Not a "page" border, this one is a "paragraph"
border.

Look up "Borders" in the help.

Cheers

Thanks for your reply, Bob.

The dots happen according to no rule of thumb that I can perceive. They appear
whether in Normal View or Page View. (BTW, they're not like the Normal View's
page break dots; these are fat black squares.) And they are sometimes, but not
always, associated with page breaks.

In Normal view, they overprint the usual page break dots until they reach the
margin, at which point they stop and the usual page break dots continue to the
edge of the doc.

Yes, the line of fat square dots shows up in Print Preview, and yes, it
prints. Worst of all is the apparently random appearance. Gad!

I am working on the latest Word 2004, and disk permissions have been repaired.
Oh yes, and it's happened on several different Macs I've used (most often on
my wife's). Not super often, to be sure, but it's very annoying when it does
happen.

And, oh yes, I can't seem to make the fat black dots appear just now -- to be
expected, I suppose, now that you're looking. I have been playing with an
existing doc that has the little buggers, but I haven't been able to do
anything that makes new ones, nor have I been able to remove them (except by
selecting all and choosing "clear formatting" from the styles drop-down -- a
strategy that has some obvious drawbacks when working with a highly formatted
doc).

Any other ideas?

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[CyberTaz]

I think John's hit the nail on the head

As to other possible reasons why it may seem to be happening "randomly":

There may be a keystroke assigned to one of the Border commands which you
can verify & remove in the Customize Keyboard dialog, or

You have the AutoFormat As You Type and/or AutoFormat feature checked for
replacing Symbol Characters (--) with Symbols (­). If so, typing several
consecutive periods, hyphens, and certain other characters then pressing
return automatically produces a border.

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

 

[bhowell]

Hi John and Bob,

Jackpot! It was indeed a paragraph border, with verrrrry strange behavior.

For one thing, neither my wife nor I use paragraph borders in our docs (we have separate Macs), except in tables, and then only solid lines. Nor are there any keyboard shortcuts assigned for borders. Yes, we had turned on the replace "Symbol Characters (--) with Symbols (­)", though we never intentionally typed a fat square dot before (and wouldn't know how). And weirdest of all, when I turned off the unwanted border for an entire paragraph and its neighbors above and below (which didn't have the borders), often some other paragraph would suddenly take on that border, even though it hadn't had one before. I suppose there is an explanation, somewhere.

Anyway, by trial and error, I found a group of paragraphs that I could de-border without having a new border appear somewhere. Fortunately, neither of us uses paragraph borders very much, so we have a solution should it happen again. Wish I knew what we did in the first place, though.

Thanks to both of you for your generous help, and the gracious ways in which you gave it.

Regards,
Rich

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Rich:

You're welcome. That's what we're here for. We might even have been able
to spend more time on this in normal times, but right now we're a bit rushed
with all the skin and fur flying as a result of the new Office 2008 release.

The answer to your remaining question is quite simple: The "Rules" for a
border are "If two adjacent paragraphs have the same border, the border
shows only on the top (or bottom) paragraph. In other words, an "box"
border will form a box around all the contained paragraphs.

When you remove the border from one of the adjacent paragraphs, it
immediately springs to life in the one above or below that.

A bit like Whack a Mole This behaviour is by design: it enables you to
easily construct a box around a selection of paragraphs. But it's
disconcerting if you are not expecting it...

Cheers

Hi John and Bob,

Jackpot! It was indeed a paragraph border, with verrrrry strange behavior.

For one thing, neither my wife nor I use paragraph borders in our docs (we
have separate Macs), except in tables, and then only solid lines. Nor are
there any keyboard shortcuts assigned for borders. Yes, we had turned on the
replace "Symbol Characters (--) with Symbols (­)", though we never
intentionally typed a fat square dot before (and wouldn't know how). And
weirdest of all, when I turned off the unwanted border for an entire paragraph
and its neighbors above and below (which didn't have the borders), often some
other paragraph would suddenly take on that border, even though it hadn't had
one before. I suppose there is an explanation, somewhere.

Anyway, by trial and error, I found a group of paragraphs that I could
de-border without having a new border appear somewhere. Fortunately, neither
of us uses paragraph borders very much, so we have a solution should it happen
again. Wish I knew what we did in the first place, though.

Thanks to both of you for your generous help, and the gracious ways in which
you gave it.

Regards,
Rich

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Vic DiFranco]

This note is to John McGhie,

I entered the Mactopia site to have a question answered, an lo and behold, you had already answered it! I too, was having a devil of a time deciding what these small square dots were in my Word file. I searched the site for "dots", and found bhowels question on the same topic, and your incisive answer.
Allow me to thank you as well. I will register for this site, since it appears to be an extremely useful one.
Best regards,
Vic Difranco

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Vic:

Thanks, and welcome aboard It's really important to us when people take
the trouble to say thanks. Because that's the only "pay" we get in here

Yes, the idea with this site is to get users talking to other users. Some
of us in here are long or complex document professionals who do this stuff
for a living each day.

Some of us are university professors who spend their day marking papers, so
take care with your spelling and grammar!! Others are home users creating
all sorts of things for home or school. A document does not have to be
"large" to be challenging.

I hope you will indeed hang around in here and have a great time. Along the
way, you just might be able to share your knowledge of Word with others.

Now, can we get back to discussing the football??

Cheers

This note is to John McGhie,

I entered the Mactopia site to have a question answered, an lo and behold, you
had already answered it! I too, was having a devil of a time deciding what
these small square dots were in my Word file. I searched the site for "dots",
and found bhowels question on the same topic, and your incisive answer.
Allow me to thank you as well. I will register for this site, since it
appears to be an extremely useful one.
Best regards,
Vic Difranco

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Nhulunbuy, Northern Territory, Australia