5 Methods to Remove Highlighting or Shading in Your Word Document

In this article, we plan to show you 5 useful methods to remove highlighting or shading quickly in your Word document.

Now and then, do you get confused by highlighting and shading in Word documents? They look so much alike that it’s hard for us to tell them apart from one to another. Therefore, we make a comparison of them:

2 Methods to Remove Text Highlighting

Now let’s take a look at how to clear them respectively.

If you know the texts are in highlighting, you can deploy the following methods.

Method 1: Choose No Color for Highlighting

1. Firstly, select the texts in highlight.
2. Then click “Text Highlight Color” in “Font” group under “Home” tab.
3. On the drop-down menu, choose “No Color”.

Method 2: Use “Find and Replace” Feature

1. Firstly, click “Home”, then “Replace” to open “Find and Replace” dialog box.
2. Then ensure “Replace” tab is on. Place cursor at the “Find what” text box and click “More”.
3. Next, click “Format”.
4. Then click “Highlight”.
5. Now place cursor at “Replace with” text box.
6. Next repeat step 3 and 4 twice.
7. Lastly, click “Replace All”.

2 Methods to Remove Shading

If you ae sure the Words are in shading, here are ways to clear.

Method 1: Choose No Color for Shading

1. To start with, select text in shading.
2. Then click “Shading” in “Paragraph” group under “Home” tab.
3. Next choose “No Color”. Then all shading is gone.

Method 2: Use Shortcut

Earlier, we just mentioned that shading can be a part of a style. So you can remove it by pressing “Ctrl+ Q”. Certainly, you have to select them first. By the way, it can strip other formatting, such as converting auto numbered list to plain text.

2 Methods to Remove Both Highlighting and Shading

Method 1: Paste as Unformatted Text

1. To begin with, select the target text and press “Ctrl+ X” to cut them of the document.
2. Then click “Paste Special” on the drop-down menu of “Paste” option to open the same name dialog box where you should choose “Unformatted Text”.
3. Next simply click “OK” will be enough.

Method 2: The VBA Codes

1. Firstly press the “Alt+ F11” to open VBA editor.
2. Next paste the following codes and click “Run” to remove both highlighting and shading:

Sub RemoveShadingandHighlights()
  Selection.Font.Shading.Texture = wdTextureNone
  Selection.Shading.BackgroundPatternColor = wdColorWhite
  Selection.Shading.ForegroundPatternColor = wdColorWhite
  Selection.Range.HighlightColorIndex = wdNoHighlight
End Sub

Note: Before you hit the “Run” button, you have to select the target text first. You can press “Ctrl+ A” to select the whole document.

In case you want to determine whether you have a text in highlighting or shading, you are welcome to use the codes to check it out.

The codes to remove highlighting are:

Sub RemoveAllHighlights()
  Selection.Range.HighlightColorIndex = wdNoHighlight
End Sub

While the codes to remove shading are:

Sub RemoveShading()
  Selection.Font.Shading.Texture = wdTextureNone
  Selection.Shading.BackgroundPatternColor = wdColorWhite
  Selection.Shading.ForegroundPatternColor = wdColorWhite
End Sub

If either of the 2 set of codes works, you can know what it is.

Extract from Corrupted Word Files

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Author Introduction:

Vera Chen is a data recovery expert in DataNumen, Inc., which is the world leader in data recovery technologies, including corrupt xls data repair tool and pdf repair software products. For more information visit www.datanumen.com