All right, how about this variant on the same problem: I select a sentence, and use a recorded macro to change it to black. (The original sentence was gray.) All the words in the sentence obediently change to black -- except one. That word will not change unless I a) click on the ribbon to change it, or b) erase all styles from the word and only then run my macro on it.

This is not the only document this has happened in. And sometimes longer stretches refuse to change color. I have examined the text using the style inspector and the more detailed information available on the style pane. It appears absolutely identical to the text on either side of it.

The only common factor I can think of is that I have always been dictating this text with Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Might that have some impact? It's difficult to see how when the style inspector says it is identical to the text that will turn black obligingly.

Any ideas on how to tweak the macro? (Other than erasing all styles, since reinstating the styles in the macro would require that I know in advance what font styles will be used in every document.)

Thanks.

EDIT: I've just noticed that the problem concerns only text that is grey (it's actually 'Black: 50% Lighter on the ribbon text color selector). There is also dark red text, changed using a different macro, and that changes back to black just fine in every case. Which makes this seem like it's going to be a Microsoft bug, and not due to something in Dragon NaturallySpeaking.