Phantom Red Line

Question

Every once in a while, I get this phantom squiggly line. It acts like a watermark, but that option is turned off. Opening and closing the document sometimes gets rid of it, but too often it just moves to another page. Does anyone know what this is or how to get rid of it? See the example below over the word "Change." Today it's on page 8,

Answer 1

Hi Mia - it's a propriety document and I cannot share. However, I did figure it out. It's tied to the Footer. It's an object that has a red line and a gray line. We have no idea where it came from or why it's tied to the footer but showing in the middle of the document. I'm cleaning up and deleting. Thank you for following up!

Answer 2

If someone is using the Draw function with the document, it is possible that those tiny lines have been added by mistake. Once you exit the "Draw mode," drawn objects are treated as anchored objects on the page.

Repeated objects (if that is what you are seeing) are usually anchored to the header. To remove them, active the header/footer view and delete the object. Maybe that is what you had to do in this case (watermarks work in a similar fashion, by being anchored to the header so that they can repeat throughout a document).

Answer 3

Hello Julie,

I would like to know whether this problem happens to specific Word documents or all Word documents? If the problem is with a specific Word document, we would like to request you share the sample Word document with us, so we can test it at our end.

Note: Please upload the document to your OneDrive or any cloud location and share the link with us.

If the problem happens with all documents, please perform Online Repair and check the result. Reference: Repair an Office application (microsoft.com)

Best Regards,

Mia