what causes a vertical line to appear in Word?

A

Anxious Learner

I am using microsoft office word 2003. I was formatting a letter and
attempted to establish what I think is a center tab to line up the right
half of the text. I tried several things. I ended up with faint vertical
lines on several lines of text of the letter. Why? How do I get rid of them?
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

You may have inadvertently inserted a bar tab. Go to Format | Tabs and check
on this; clear it if necessary.
 
J

John Doue

Suzanne said:
You may have inadvertently inserted a bar tab. Go to Format | Tabs and check
on this; clear it if necessary.
Click to expand...
Suzanne,

What would be the most common uses for such a bar tab?

Thanks
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

As I understand it, it's a survival from DOS days, before the table feature
was introduced, and was used in conjunction with underlining to create the
appearance of a ruled table. It can still be used that way (and I
occasionally do so, though using paragraph borders to create the horizontal
lines). When you set such a tab, the line appears automatically at the tab
stop position and automatically extends to the height of the paragraph so
that it is possible to create a continuous vertical line extending through
one or more paragraphs. I have on occasion used it as a center line to help
me copy by hand text that I have printed, for example, when I'm handwriting
formal, centered text such as:

Dr. and Mrs. Matthew Talbot Barnhill, Jr.
accept with pleasure
the kind invitation
of Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Doe
for Saturday, the thirtieth of September

and the like.
 
J

John Doue

Suzanne said:
As I understand it, it's a survival from DOS days, before the table feature
was introduced, and was used in conjunction with underlining to create the
appearance of a ruled table. It can still be used that way (and I
occasionally do so, though using paragraph borders to create the horizontal
lines). When you set such a tab, the line appears automatically at the tab
stop position and automatically extends to the height of the paragraph so
that it is possible to create a continuous vertical line extending through
one or more paragraphs. I have on occasion used it as a center line to help
me copy by hand text that I have printed, for example, when I'm handwriting
formal, centered text such as:

Dr. and Mrs. Matthew Talbot Barnhill, Jr.
accept with pleasure
the kind invitation
of Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Doe
for Saturday, the thirtieth of September

and the like.
Click to expand...
Thanks Suzanne. Sorry I missed the humor from the signature part but I
trust it is just me being dense today ...

Regards
 
J

John Doue

Suzanne said:
Humor?
Click to expand...

Sorry, I got sidetracked by the name "John Doe" (almost my handle):
Dr. and Mrs. Matthew Talbot Barnhill, Jr.
accept with pleasure
the kind invitation
of Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Doe
for Saturday, the thirtieth of September

and the like.
Click to expand...

and did not realize it was an example of text.

Reading too fast ...

Regards
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

Ah, my bad. I hadn't even noticed your name when I was briefly debating
between "Doe" and "Citizen."
 
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