Right angle lines in four corners of Word documents (not language problem)

[bdt513]

When viewing my Microsoft Word documents in Print Layout, four L shaped
lines appear in the four margin corners of the document. At the same
time this happened, a button pair appeared on my toolbar indicating
left-to-right orientation (and vice versa).

In reading other posts on this group, the solution to this problem
seems to be disabling any Asian languages from the Microsoft Office XP
Language Settings. However, the only language I have listed there (and
the only language ever knowingly installed on my system) is English,
and thus I should not have the symptoms of the Asian languages
settings. I also made sure that the "Text Boundaries" box was
unchecked, which it was.

How do I solve this problem since I can't disable what is not enabled
in the first place?

Version: Microsoft Word 2002 SP3
OS: Windows XP SP2

Thanks in advance,
BDT

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

See if this article helps:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=839371

In particular, look at the section entitled: Remove margin marks in Word
2002

If you're still getting them after this, then I wonder if there might be
some kind of registry corruption, in which case you'd want to try some
diagnostic steps to see what it takes to get them to go away. For example,
I'd try starting Word in Safe Mode. To do this, hold down the Ctrl key when
you start Word, and keep it depressed until Word appears on the Windows task
bar, and say "Yes" to starting in safe mode.

Are the Ls still there? If so, then it's likely that the problem goes beyond
a Word registry problem. It's possible that Office's registry is messed up
in some way. I'd try enabling Asian languages, then disabling them, to
sort-of jiggle the setting to see if that will make setup rewrite the
registry entries.

All else failing, I'd try creating a new Windows User (Start - Settings -
Control Panel - User Accounts), and see if the new user's profile exhibits
the same thing.

 

[Country Boy]

Hi

do you have XP SP2 installed?

Country Boy

 

[bdt513]

Thanks for the help. I had already tried the Microsoft suggestions
before I posted here, so that was not the problem.

However, I did solve this issue by running a "Detect and Repair" on my
MS Office suite. I needed to do that to fix a corrupt powerpoint file
and was pleased to see that it had the secondary benefit of fixing my
Word issue. In all my years of using Office, that's the first time
Detect and Repair has actually be useful.

Thanks again for your post.