Occasionally, you might Activate a document and see black lines appear in your document:


illustration of black borders in word document


The strange black lines are paragraph borders that were toggled into existence when the document was Activated. (If your Word background is set to a color other than the default white, you may also see white borders!) We typically see this when the applied paragraph style includes Paragraph Border attributes that are set to "no border." If you look at the paragraph style definition, you might see something like:


Font: (Default) Calibri, Font color: Black, French (France)
    Border: : (No border), Left
    Line spacing:  Multiple 1.15 li, Space
    After:  10 pt, Widow/Orphan control, Border:
    Top: (No border)
    Bottom: (No border)
    Left: (No border)
    Right: (No border)
    Between : (No border)
    Bar : (No border)


When the document is Activated, the Paragraph Border attributes stay the same (i.e., "no border"), but the borders appear! We are not sure why this is the case, but we have a feeling the null border settings are somehow corrupted. We are still looking for a pattern to this mysterious behavior.


To fix this:

The quickest and most straightforward fix for this issue is simply to run eXtyles Cleanup and then proceed to Paragraph Styling, because in almost all cases, applying the correct style from the Paragraph Styling Palette will remove the original Paragraph Border attributes and the strange borders will go away.


If the presence of the black borders is interfering with your ability to style the document (e.g., by making it hard to see what's going on in closely spaced short paragraphs), or if for some reason applying the correct styles does not eliminate all cases of black-bordered paragraphs, try the method below.


Start by checking the Activated document to determine which paragraph style has the black borders applied to it. Then, remove the $base from the original file's filename to convert it to the working file from before you Activated the document. In the Unactivated document, you will have to remove the Paragraph Border attributes before you can successfully activate the document. To do this:

  1. Click on the small arrow in the bottom-right corner of the Quick Styles menu to open the Styles menu.
  2. Click on the drop-down arrow for the corrupted paragraph style style, and click Modify.
  3. Click on the Format button, then select Borders.
  4. Select None from the left-hand list of Setting, and click OK, then OK to close to Modify Style window, and then Apply to re-apply the modified style.
  5. Save the document, and then try Activating the document again.


If you encounter any further issues, do not hesitate to contact the support team. We'll be glad to help.