cursor with 4 arrows at 4 sides

If this  is the cursor you're seeing, it's intended for moving the program's window to a different place on the screen. You might have gotten it by pressing the Alt key and the spacebar together, releasing them, and then pressing the M key. (The Alt+space shortcut opens the "system menu" from the little program icon in the top left corner, and M is the letter that selects Move in that menu.)

To get rid of it, just press the Esc key.

That would indicate that the text in the document is actually a picture and if it is text, it was probably inserted into the document by using Paste>Special>Picture (Enhanced Metafile).

While it may look like ordinary text, it is not possible to edit or add to it.

When a document is scanned, unless the OCR option is selected, it is scanned as a picture (even if the target file is a Word document). That may be the source of this problem.

I’m sorry the esc key did not get rid of it. Some more info. The 4 arrows look like one line arrows and

not puffed up like yours and also when I put the cursor on the document and the

4 arrows show and then tap on the cursor in Windows 8 the bar at the top highlights Picture Tool with Format just below

it. Does that ring any bells…

Thanks so much again,

dw

Doug,

Thanks much.........It sure is a odd situation. I have no clue how my wife could do this as she

has no Word experience. She is funny with tech. stuff....all of it from cellphone, I-phones,

tablets, desktops and laptops, it all goes bad, but in a good way.

Again I really appreciate you time with this. I will type it over in a new word document.

Sincerely yours,

David S West

Corbett, OR

Columbia River Gorge