Word 2013 – How to remove mystery line at top of bottom of document

 

MSWord2013-BlackLine1

 

If you’ve found a black line at the top of bottom of your document and you can’t work out where it’s coming from or how to move it, your answer may be as simple as page borders – a rarely used formatting option.

To check if this is your problem and to remove the page border, open the ‘DESIGN’ tab then click on the ‘Page Borders’ button

MSWord2013-BlackLine2

If you see a line on the preview to the right, then click on the line to remove it. Click ‘OK’ to save the changes.

MSWord2013-BlackLine3

 

This will remove the page border

MSWord2013-BlackLine4

This didn’t remove your mystery line?

Try:

  • Open the header, use Ctrl + A to select all then click ‘Delete’ on the keyboard
  • Repeat the same steps for the footer
  • Click in the content area, use Ctrl + A to select all then click ‘Delete’ on the keyboard

If any of these steps moved the line, then you know where the line is – that is, it’s in the header, the footer or the content.

You can then use Ctrl + Z to undo the delete and return your document contents.

Now for the area you identified you’ll need to work through all the formatting to remove the line.

Usually I find the line is a part of the header or footer, but has been positioned to the middle of the document.

In this case I would open the header, then use the mouse to click on the line and then click the ‘Delete’ button on the keyboard.

 

 

Tagged in

10 comments on “Word 2013 – How to remove mystery line at top of bottom of document

  1. I had this same problem and was ready to tear my hair out. Then, I found a solution that was way too easy. On the Home bar inside the Paragraph section there is a tiny little box with a vertical and a horizontal line crossing in the center on the far right (in Word 13). I selected my entire document, then clicked the little box to drop down the menu and clicked on the “no Borders” icon. It took out almost every one of the lines. I did it a second time and they all disappeared! I was joyous to say the least. You can experiment around with bottom or top borders to see if they work for you, but the “no borders” did it for me!

    Jayne Harper Hill

  2. I had this same problem and was ready to tear my hair out. Then, I found a solution that was way too easy. On the Home bar inside the Paragraph section there is a tiny little box with a vertical and a horizontal line crossing in the center on the far right (in Word 13).. I selected my entire document, then clicked to drop down the menu and clicked on the “no Borders” icon. It took out almost every one of the lines. I did it a second time and they all disappeared! I was joyous to say the last. You can experiment around with bottom or top borders to see if they work for you, but the “no borders” did it for me!

    Jayne Hill

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *