Murray knows how to remove shading from a single paragraph. However, he needs to remove shading from many paragraphs in a document. He wonders how to do so without the need of doing each paragraph individually.
There are actually a few ways you can approach this issue. First, if you don't need shading on any of the paragraphs in your document, you could follow these general steps:
A macro could be easily recorded to perform the above steps; it would end up looking something like the following. (I've removed any comments and extraneous information from the macro. If you recorded one, it would actually be more verbose.)
Sub Macro1()
Selection.WholeStory
Selection.Shading.Texture = wdTextureNone
Selection.Shading.ForegroundPatternColor = wdColorAutomatic
Selection.Shading.BackgroundPatternColor = wdColorAutomatic
Selection.Collapse
End Sub
If, instead, you only need to remove shading from some of your paragraphs, you could "repeat" your removal actions. Just remove the shading from one paragraph and then place the insertion point in another paragraph and press F4. (The F4 key repeats the last action taken.) Continue to place the insertion point in other paragraphs and press F4 each time. This continues to work as long as you don't perform some other editing or formatting task.
A third option is the most powerful: Define styles. You can create styles that define how you want your text to look—including the presence or absence of shading—and then apply those styles to paragraphs throughout your document. It is fast, easy, and consistent. (How you define styles is described in other WordTips.)
Note:
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1541) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Office 365.
Learning Made Easy! Quickly teach yourself how to format, publish, and share your content using Word 2013. With Step by Step, you set the pace, building and practicing the skills you need, just when you need them! Check out Microsoft Word 2013 Step by Step today!
If the line spacing in a paragraph appears uneven it may result of the combination of a larger character or object pasted ...
Discover MoreDo you ever have mysterious lines show up between paragraphs either on your screen or on your printouts? It could be ...
Discover MoreParagraphs can be aligned in four different ways. This tip examines those alignment methods.
Discover MoreFREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
2021-06-27 14:08:25
Julia
Just use Format painting, way less hassle.
2020-12-14 19:31:00
Christine W.
Someone used Shading instead of the Highlight button to "highlight" text throughout a 200+ page Word document. I tried selecting the whole document, clicking the Shading button on the Home tab, and then selecting No Color, but that did nothing (Word 2016). The above macro also did not work. However, the following macro did the trick:
Sub Macro()
Selection.Font.Shading.Texture = wdTextureNone
Selection.Shading.BackgroundPatternColor = wdColorWhite
Selection.Shading.ForegroundPatternColor = wdColorWhite
End Sub
2020-10-10 20:04:41
Michael Milligan
This doesn't work for me. Selecting the entire document then using the character shading tool in the Paragraph group of the Home tab does nothing at all in Word 16.
Thanks very much to Ken Endacott for the information and especially the macro!
After I wrestled with Word for an hour to remove shading from the document, including following the instructions on this page without success, I ran Ken Endacott's macro. It went paragraph by paragraph through my whole document removing the shading while leaving the highlighting intact, while I watched! It was incredibly satisfying to watch it zap all of the shading paragraph by paragraph. I wouldn't speed it up even if I could. LOL
2017-11-26 04:38:00
Ken Endacott
The methods given will only remove shading where it is applied to whole paragraphs. Shading can be paragraph or character. Character shading can be removed by selecting the shaded text and clicking CTRL + SPACE. However this also removes other character formatting such as bold, underline or italic.
If the shading is applied to scattered text in a large document then there are two choices, the first is to select each paragraph that has some shaded test and apply No Color from the shading menu, just as long as you don’t include the paragraph mark in the selection. A somewhat tedious exercise.
The second method is to use a macro. The following macro will remove both paragraph and character shading from a document without affecting other formatting.
Sub removeShading3()
Dim aRange As Range
Dim aPara As Paragraph
Dim k As Long
For Each aPara In ActiveDocument.Paragraphs
aPara.Range.Select
Selection.Shading.BackgroundPatternColor = wdColorAutomatic
k = aPara.Range.Characters.Count
Set aRange = aPara.Range
If k > 1 Then aRange.MoveEnd unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=-1
DoEvents
aRange.Shading.Texture = wdTextureNone
aRange.Shading.ForegroundPatternColor = wdColorAutomatic
aRange.Shading.BackgroundPatternColor = wdColorAutomatic
Next aPara
MsgBox "Finished removing shading"
End Sub
2015-09-30 15:31:42
awyatt
Dr H: See the WordTips FAQ if you need to know what the ribbon is:
http://wordribbon.tips.net/faq.html
-Allen
2015-09-30 15:20:04
Dr H
WTF is the "Home tab of the ribbon"?
I don't see anything called a "ribbon", nor any "home tabs".
Don't understand why a macro should be necessary to turn off a simple text format like shading. Never had this problem with WordPerfect.
2015-02-21 11:56:15
Barry Thistlethwaite
Ctrl + y does the same thing as F4.
Got a version of Word that uses the ribbon interface (Word 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the menu interface.
FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
Copyright © 2021 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.
Comments