[Solved] Black underline refuses to be deleted

[boristhemoggy]

I'm trying to write a document, which has text, then some numbered lists, then more text. At the beginning I had "name and address" and underneath used the underscore key _________ like this to indicate a writing line.
As I continued a thick black line appeared, the width of the page, which refuses to be deleted. In one paragraph I managed to get rid, I simply hit space bar after I'd drawn the line before hitting enter for a new paragraph. However as I continued writing another one came up, and now I have 4 of them in the document, in total random places.
It's driving me nuts, I can't complete the document. I even started a new one, an copied and pasted the paragraphs that were unaffected. But as soon as I pasted them into the new document the thick black line appeared instantly at the bottom and refuses to budge.
There's no character for it when I select view non-printing characters and hidden paragraphs, so I'm at a loss to understand what they are and how they've got there. All I know is I've wasted a week so far trying to get rid and now it's getting really silly, so I'd appreciate very much an idea on how to get rid please.

[RoryOF]

Look at /Format /Paragraph, Borders tab

Look at
http://forum.openoffice.org/en/forum/vi ... 7&p=218733

[Bill]

At the beginning I had "name and address" and underneath used the underscore key _________ like this to indicate a writing line.

Using the underscore key like that invokes the "Apply border" AutoCorrect option which adds a bottom border to the preceding paragraph. If you want to use the underscore in that way, you should select Tools > AutoCorrect Options... > Options and uncheck the "Apply border" option. That will stop the border from being applied automatically in the future but won't remove existing borders.

With the AutoCorrect window open on the Options tab, click the Help button. Help will open in the section that explains the options.

[boristhemoggy]

Right I've changed the auto-correct, however when using the Format>Paragraph a .5 line is selected. I choose 'None' instead, click ok, nothing happens. I go back into Format>Paragraph, and .5 line is selected again :s

[boristhemoggy]

I installed Libre office and copied the text over. Same problem, although somehow I am now down to one black line.
So I copied the entire document and pasted it into Wordpad. No black line. Copied it and pasted it back into a brand new Open Office document, 1 black line. F@cker will not go away.
I've utterly wasted yet another 2 solid hours on f@cking on with this instead of working on the document. You see, free isn't always better!

[acknak]

Changing the line style to "none" does not turn the border off. You have to use the diagram at the left to turn the borders on or off. Either click on the borders shown in the diagram, or click on the preset at the top that shows no borders.

If the borders are on (by the diagram) they're visible in the document; if the borders are off, then the style setting does not matter.

You're right, it's a confusing interface design.

[Bill]

I installed Libre office and copied the text over. Same problem, although somehow I am now down to one black line.
So I copied the entire document and pasted it into Wordpad. No black line. Copied it and pasted it back into a brand new Open Office document, 1 black line. F@cker will not go away.
I've utterly wasted yet another 2 solid hours on f@cking on with this instead of working on the document. You see, free isn't always better!

If you've been hitting Enter after a paragraph with a border, the new paragraph will also have a border. This will continue as long as you hit Enter to create new paragraphs. If the "Merge with next paragraph" option is enabled for borders, only the border on the last paragraph will be shown. You have to delete the border from every paragraph, not just the last one.

WordPad doesn't show the borders, but they're still in the doucment. You can't get rid of them by pasting into WordPad.

Right I've changed the auto-correct, however when using the Format>Paragraph a .5 line is selected. I choose 'None' instead, click ok, nothing happens. I go back into Format>Paragraph, and .5 line is selected again :s

It works for me. The line style always reverts back to the default setting when selecting Format > Paragraph > Borders, but the border itself should be removed when the line style is set to "none".

Changing the line style to "none" does not turn the border off.

It does for me on Windows. When the line style "none" is selected, the border line shown in the User-defined box (Line arrangement) disappears. The line style will revert to the default setting but the border will be gone.

[acknak]

Changing the line style to "none" does not turn the border off.

It does for me on Windows. ...

Wow. Same here. I wonder when that changed; I recall pretty clearly that you had to use the diagram in previous versions.

I found an open issue in the bug tracker for this and some people were arguing that the setting of a border with no lines was actually useful.

Maybe I should add a comment on the issue ...

[boristhemoggy]

Right...sorry I lost my temper. I never like wasting time on fruitless endeavours.
I just have to say that in no part of my document did I have either lines or borders. If they have been introduced, it was by the software...as said, perhaps when I was making those lines?
I did go through all of the options for borders, including the little square when you can click none, setting none, and even setting the line colour to white, which had no impact at all. After I pressed OK and went straight back into the sub menu, the options were all the same yet again.

Luckily this document has very little formatting, apart from numbered lists which are easily and quickly recreated. What I eventually did was I copied out the entire document contents, pasted it into notepad which retains no formatting whatsoever, then copied it back to a brand new Write document. Problem solved.

Thank you all for your time I do appreciate it, it's good to know you can go somewhere when you get problems like this.

[Bill]

I just have to say that in no part of my document did I have either lines or borders. If they have been introduced, it was by the software...as said, perhaps when I was making those lines?

Yes, you introduced the borders when you pressed the underscore key more than three times and pressed Enter as I stated in my first reply.

[boristhemoggy]

That's what I was referring to Bill. Thanks for the suggestion. My problem was that it proved impossible to get rid of them, no matter what I did. It's not good when you don't have any control over your own document.

[RoryOF]

Normally, if one types three --- or *** or three of various other characters, one gets a line (differing in weight and style depending on the precise characters) when one presses Enter. An immediate /Edit /Undo or Ctrl Z will undo the autoformatting and remove the line.

[Bill]

I've never found it impossible to get rid of paragraph borders. If it's impossible to get rid of the underlines in your document, please post a sample document with the problem so we can see if there may be some other cause for the underlines. It should never be necessary to paste text into Notepad just to remove formatting. Removal of the formatting should be possible using only the tools available in OOo/AOO.

You do have control over your documents, but you have to know how to use the tools that give you that control.

[boristhemoggy]

I've never found it impossible to get rid of paragraph borders. If it's impossible to get rid of the underlines in your document, please post a sample document with the problem so we can see if there may be some other cause for the underlines. It should never be necessary to paste text into Notepad just to remove formatting. Removal of the formatting should be possible using only the tools available in OOo/AOO.

You do have control over your documents, but you have to know how to use the tools that give you that control.

Bill...the problem there is firstly identifying what the black lines are and where they came from. Nowhere are they mentioned in help files. That's the reason I came on here. Like anything, fixing is often straightforward, it's fault analysis that is the really difficult thing to do.
To be fair, I did come on here and was made aware of the controls, and they failed to get rid of the lines. I've deleted the cursed contract now of course, but I will see if I can recreate it just for you to play with.

[boristhemoggy]

Well that was easy. I deleted 4 lines, then typed in a few words and drew 2 lines of underscores. Sure enough the line appeared. I tried to delete, won't let me. I changed the command in auto correct to not replace dashes with lines, then saved the file. Then I opened it again and tried to set the border to none, and also tried setting it to white. It's not having it. In fact when I tried to set it to white it made another one! How can I send you the document?
It's OK I worked it out through PM, document now sent.

[Bill]

The document I received had a visible border below the fifth paragraph. I selected that paragraph (the one directly above the line), then selected Format > Paragraph > Borders. The user-defined line arrangement showed a bottom border. The line style was a single 1pt line. I set the line style to "None" and the border disappeared from the user-defined line arrangement. I clicked OK to close the Paragraph dialog and the border disappeared from the document. If that doesn't work for you, you might try resetting your user profile, but that will also reset the AutoCorrect options back to the default settings.

[Tutorial] The OpenOffice User Profile

I also tried changing the border color to white. No new lines appeared and the single existing border turned white but was not removed.

[boristhemoggy]

OK That worked for me doing it exactly as you said. Of course, I had no idea you had to select just that one paragraph, as initially there were 3 lines so I selected them all. In the test document I simply selected the line above to the line below thinking that that would fix it. I mean, 1 paragraph or 3 paragraphs, should it matter how many you select when you want to set or unset a style? A good piece of learning, thank you for your time, it is appreciated.

[Bill]

A quick test shows that if multiple paragraphs are selected, they must all have the same borders settings in order to remove the borders using Format > Paragraph > Borders. It won't work if any paragraph has different borders settings.

[Flaxthejute]

I did a quick test with a random document, and discovered that selecting Format->Clear direct formatting will get rid of these lines. Mind you, it'll also get rid of all other direct formatting (manually applied bold etc) so use with care.

[Bill]

Format > Clear Direct Formatting, which is in LibreOffice only, will clear direct formatting only. In AOO, the similar Format > Default Formatting will clear direct formatting and character styles.