All my text highlighted in gray and automatically selected

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Euphronios Posted messages 3 Status Membre -  
 Clemence -
Good evening,

I updated today to Word 2016 and since then, my most important file (my thesis!) is displaying with a gray highlight; whenever I click anywhere in the text, all the text is selected, which makes it impossible to work on it.
I've tried correcting the highlighting, the layout, the style, and copying and pasting into another file. Nothing works.
I noticed that when I right-click/Properties, a window opens titled "Field Options: text," which among other information, shows "Maximum length: 255." I don't know if this could be related to the problem.
My last backup is already several days old, during which I worked a lot, which is why I would like to restore the normal functioning of this version.
Thank you for your help and attention.
Have a good evening!

1 réponse

m@rina Posted messages 27233 Registration date   Status Modérateur Last intervention   11 543
 
Hello,

Your text indeed looks like a field. Just so you know, it’s not a simple version change that caused this, and it couldn’t have happened by itself.

When you press Alt+F9, what do you see?

Otherwise, if you wish, I can take a look at your doc. You can put it here
https://www.cjoint.com/
and send me the link via PM so it’s not shared with the whole world.

m@rina

--
We are not clairvoyants: please remember to mention the version of the software used and how you proceeded.
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Euphronios Posted messages 3 Status Membre 1
 
Thank you very much, Marina!
When I changed versions, the layout of my document was modified: it is quite possible that in trying to restore it, I made an incorrect operation.
When I press Alt+F9, I don't see anything. Unfortunately, my text is far too large for me to send it via Cjoint. Can I send it to you through another medium?
Thank you in any case!
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m@rina Posted messages 27233 Registration date   Status Modérateur Last intervention   11 543
 
Good evening,

You can try putting it in a new folder on Microsoft cloud and sharing the folder with me. If that's okay, I will give you my email address by private message.
m@rina
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Euphronios Posted messages 3 Status Membre 1 > m@rina Posted messages 27233 Registration date   Status Modérateur Last intervention  
 
Thank you very much for your suggestion, Marina. I managed to unlock the file. I'll explain how, as this might be useful to others: I opened my document in OpenOffice, saved it, and then opened it in Word 97. (I had tried to open it in W97 directly from W2016, and the problem was still there.)
I kept my images, my notes, my tables, my formatting, and my table of contents. The only minor issue was that the captions were no longer recognized as such (so, it was impossible to create cross-references and edit a list of illustrations); I had to redo them manually, but it was fairly quick. The reason for this bug remains a mystery to me, but all's well that ends well!
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Clemence
 

Hello, I have the same issue. After my bibliography, everything I write is highlighted in gray. I tried section breaks, page breaks, but nothing works, everything remains gray... Do you have a solution?

Thank you in advance

Clemence

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