My Microsoft Word text boxes are broken. Nothing seems to fix it.

Mehmet 35 Reputation points
2025-07-22T14:36:58.1466667+00:00

Hello, my Microsoft Word text boxes randomly broke. When I try to edit one text box, all the other ones are affected too. Deleting text from one box randomly changes all text in every text box. These changes seem to be only a visual bug, because they are reverted when I right click the box, click layout options, and then click "Fix position on page".

When I delete too much text and text from another box starts to come in, I can click that text and it deletes it from the other box where it actually is. I also checked if any of these boxes were linked and no, none of them are linked to each other.

Things that I tried:
-Deleting and redownloading Microsoft 365
-Repairing Microsoft 365
-Copying a file I had problems with, opening it by clicking "Open and repair"

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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14 answers

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  1. Stefan Blom 345K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2025-07-29T20:43:16.6766667+00:00

    Looking closely at text boxes (and tables), as suggested by Hayes McCoy, I notice that there seems to be an issue with the display of text in any text box which is positioned on top of a table.

    I haven't tested in a document with multiple text boxes.

    However, I do see that typing a sentence inside a text box which is on top of a table cell only shows the first character. I can force the display of all the text if I resize the text box. See the screen shot below.

    In other words, there is obviously something going on here.

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  2. Suzanne S Barnhill 278.3K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2025-08-08T00:58:18.44+00:00

    The Word product team have been able to repro the issue internally and have a bug open for investigation. 

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  3. Stefan Blom 345K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2025-07-27T17:53:26.13+00:00

    [---] Hope this site works better for everyone: https://limewire.com/d/j8xDi#mfGZqpQLVI

    Thanks for the document.

    I don't have a complete explanation, but I suspect the problem is caused by the fact that the text box is inside a table cell (in the screen shot below, look at the table which is indicated by an arrow). The problem isn't just the position; the text box is also damaged in some way.

    I would delete and recreate the text box and see if that overcomes the problem permanently.

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  4. Charles Kenyon 168.3K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2025-07-22T16:03:25.8966667+00:00

    I agree that a sample file with the problem would help. You can use the paperclip icon here to attach a file.

    To clarify, you are talking about text boxes like those created using insert Text Box, correct?

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  5. Alexandr S 105.4K Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2025-07-22T15:45:35.1766667+00:00

    Hello, Mehmet.

    Please upload the sample file to some file sharing site, and write the link here.

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