Deleting All Text in Linked Text Boxes

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated November 18, 2023)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Word in Microsoft 365

Normally, you cannot delete all the text within text boxes. If you select all the text boxes in a document and press the Del key, the text boxes themselves will be deleted, along with the text inside. If you press Ctrl+A (or choose Select All from the Edit menu) and press Del, everything in your document disappears.

If your text boxes are linked, however, you can delete all the text within all linked text boxes by following these steps:

Select any text box in your document. You can do this by pressing Alt+Up Arrow or Alt+Down Arrow.
Press Ctrl+A. Word selects all the text in all the linked text boxes. (If all the text in your document is selected, then you didn't have a text box selected in step 1.)
Press the Del key. All the text is deleted.

If text boxes are not linked, you will need a macro to delete the text in each text box, one at a time.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1496) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Word in Microsoft 365.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

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