Typing in Boxes

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated March 13, 2021)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021

Word is acting strangely all of a sudden. Whenever Laurel creates a new document, a rectangular box appears at the top, every time. She can only type in that box and lines appear when she presses Enter to start a new paragraph. Thinking it was a problem with the Normal template, Laurel replaced it with a friend's, but that didn't work. She wonders what is causing this behavior.

Taking the step to try a new Normal template was good; that ruled out the problem being related to borders being turned on for the Normal style. The next most likely culprit is what Word refers to as Text Boundaries. This feature, if enabled, displays bothersome boxes around your text. Here is how you can control the feature:

Display the Word Options dialog box. (In Word 2007 click the Office button and then click Word Options. In Word 2010 or a later version, display the File tab of the ribbon and then click Options.)
Click Advanced at the left side of the dialog box.
Scroll through the options until you see the Show Document Content section. (You'll need to scroll down a ways.) (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Advanced options of the Word Options dialog box.

Use the Show Text Boundaries check box to control whether Word uses text boundaries or not. Click on the check box to turn the feature on and off; a check in the box means it is enabled.
Click on OK.

Once you turn off the Text Boundaries, the boxes should disappear entirely; they will not remain around anything you previously typed.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (13833) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021.

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...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Limiting Entries to Numeric Values

When creating a worksheet, you may need to limit what can be entered into a particular cell. Using data validation you ...

Discover More

Showing a Scenario

When you create and save scenarios in a workbook, you can later pull them out and display them. Here's how to do it.

Discover More

Keeping a Max Value in a Cell

Sometimes it is helpful to have a cell contain the maximum value that has ever occurred within changing data. This tip ...

Discover More

Create Custom Apps with VBA! Discover how to extend the capabilities of Office 365 applications with VBA programming. Written in clear terms and understandable language, the book includes systematic tutorials and contains both intermediate and advanced content for experienced VB developers. Designed to be comprehensive, the book addresses not just one Office application, but the entire Office suite. Check out Mastering VBA for Microsoft Office 365 today!

More WordTips (ribbon)

Changing Measurement Units

When working in Word's dialog boxes, most people understand that you should enter measurements using inches. If you don't ...

Discover More

Leaving Bullet Point Items Lowercase

When typing a bulleted list, Word seems to automatically make the first letter of each item in the list uppercase. The ...

Discover More

Increasing Font Size in the Editor Task Pane

Let's face it, there are times that the text in a task pane or dialog box is just too small to read. If you want to ...

Discover More

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is two minus 1?

2022-11-11 11:23:30

Shade

This is very helpful. It worked for a client I was trying to help. Thank you

2021-03-15 12:00:44

Daniel

I'm having the same trouble.
My Normal blank document has a text box around the cursor.
I tried what is outlined above but it didn't help.

2021-03-15 08:45:31

Lorraine DeCesare

This is happening to me too - it puts the copied text in a text box. This did not fix it. Sometimes, you don’t see it is in a box unless the you pâté at a bottom of a page and the text stays in the box. If I paste as text, lose all formats, the box is gone but I have to reformat.

This Site

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.