Vertical gray bar down left margin. Why?

[kmewing]

I’m using Word 2003. I opened a brand new template I’d just created. At
some point during my editing a vertical gray bar appeared in the left margin.
It goes the entire length of the page and appears on every page. It looks
like a change bar. I’ve look high and low in Word for a setting for change
bars and found none. I scoured Word Help for an entry on change bars and
found none. I have verified that Markup and Track Changes are turned off.

I’ve run out of ideas. Can anyone give me one? Thanks.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

The settings for change bars are on the Track Changes tab of Tools |
Options, but if Track Changes is turned off, that should not be what it is.

 

[kmewing]

OK, I found the setting for change bars (didn't see it the previous times I
opened that window). I set the "Changed lines" setting to "none." No effect
in the document.

Also, the vertical gray bars do not show up in a printout.

 

[Tony Jollans]

It sounds like a drawing in a header. If you view headers and footers (a)
does it become black rather than grey and (b) can you select and delete it?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

If it doesn't print, could it be just text boundaries (Tools | Options |
View) ? But you'd see those all the way around your page. If you're in
Normal view, it could be the style area set very narrow (also on the View
tab).

 

[kmewing]

Checked the settings as you suggested. No boundaries are turned on. Under
"Formatting marks" I unchecked everything and there was no effect on the gray
bars.

Also, the gray bars only show up in print view.

Further details: The gray bars showed up after I had pasted a large block
of text from another Word file. The file from which this text came was an
old file that's been circulated for a long time. It was used as an informal
"template" to generate a boilerplate document. The numbering had gotten
messed up, so I created a brand new "real" Word template with simplified
numbering based on paragraph styles. Before copying the text from the
original document, I cleared all the numbering out of the paragraphs. Then I
copied the text (about 60 pages worth), pasted it in a new document based on
the new template, and was recreating the numbering when the gray bars
appeared.

 

[kmewing]

I had tried that. When I view headers & footers, the gray bar remains gray
and doesn't select when I click on it.

One of my other postings has more details on how this document was created
if you want more information. Thanks.