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General discussion

Unwanted Brackets appear in Word 2004

May 18, 2008 2:19AM PDT

Hi,

Sometimes, when I've selected a paragraph to copy or delete or move in Word 2004, after I've done so I get a bold bracket " [ " where the selection began and another where it ended " ] ". These brackets remain in the original place after I've moved or deleted the paragraph. I can type within them and/or insert spaces, I can even copy the removed selection back into them, but I CANNOT delete the brackets. Selecting them and hitting 'delete' doesn't remove them, backspacing doesn't remove them, even 'undo' doesn't remove them. The only way I seem to be able to get rid of them is to close the file without saving and re-open it, which means I sometimes lose the work I've done up to that time.

I auto-save every 5 minutes, but if I don't deal with these brackets at once, if the auto-save feature engages before I've gotten rid of them, the brackets become a permanent part of my work. {Then I have to cut-and-paste the parts before and after the brackets and put them into an new file.} It might not sound like much, but it's an extremely annoying problem, as I'm a writer and not only can't I afford to lose the work I've racked my brain to create, it destroys my concentration. I don't know if they print, because I'm too busy trying to get rid of them to see if they print.

I don't know what I'm doing to cause this, thus I can't NOT do it. Any ideas on how to keep these brackets from showing up?

I have a 15" 1.67 GHz PowerBook G4 running Tiger OSX 10.4.11 with 1 GB RAM.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give.

Sunshine

Discussion is locked

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Shot in the dark, but
May 18, 2008 4:46AM PDT

I think you may have "Track Changes" turned on.

Check to see if you have the Review Toolbar active, if not then display it, and turn off Track Changes.

I was able to make the square brackets appear in a Word document just now.


Worth a try

P

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Re: Shot in the dark
May 18, 2008 4:56AM PDT

Hi,

I didn't have that toolbar active, but I turned off track changes in Preferences. I'll see if it happens again.

Thanks,

Sunshine