If you type 3 of the following characters consecutively in a blank row, that doesn’t have any text, and then press the Enter key, Word creates a border around that paragraph. However, I’ve tested it only on the newer versions of Microsoft Word, up to Word 2019.įirst let me explain what’s going on. The solution works in most, if not all, versions of Microsoft Word. It’s like Jason in the movie Friday the 13th, you just can’t kill him. Even if you select the area that contains the line, you just can’t delete it. Remember, the line behaves as if it were “invisible” to Word. Now there is absolutely no way for you to go down below the line and add any text. You just created yet another serious problem for yourself. Let’s say you delete all the text below the line (the second paragraph in the above image). Don’t bother copying these paragraphs to a new Word document because you will be copying the problem to the new document. The bold line is practically invisible to Word and Word can’t delete what it can’t see. If I create some space above and below the bold line, select the area above and below the line with my mouse and then delete the entire area, it sure will delete the line. If my cursor is above the thick line at the end of line 4, pressing the Enter key simply moves the horizontal line down. I typed a series of underscores and then pressed the Enter key, which created a bold line. The problem is only experienced when you do this on a blank line (see 5th line). If you were to add a series of underscores on a line that has text (see third line), and then hit the Enter key, there won’t be a problem. As soon as you hit the Enter key, the disaster strikes because now you can’t delete the line. On a blank line in Microsoft Word, you enter a series of underscores, perhaps to create a line like the one in the image below to separate the two paragraphs. The fix is so easy even a cave man can do it….as long as he’s comfortable with using a mouse and keyboard, of course.

In my opinion, it’s one of the most irritating things in Word that I have ever encountered.

Have you ever run into a situation in Microsoft Word where you somehow ended up with a horizontal line that you absolutely can’t delete? In this article I will show you what can cause this situation and what you can do to fix the problem.

The ghost inside my endnote