Just to make it plain and simple, I will post a screen shot of the problem. I need help getting rid of these mildly annoying grey dotted lines that is appearing in all of my microsoft office products, how do I get rid of them. They never go away and I looked all over google for the solution, but no luck

Attached Images

ms grey dotted lines.jpg (7.8 KB, 20 views)

The dotted line simply indicates which command has the focus. As far as I know, you can't get rid of it.

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Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

I'm wondering if my only options would be to reinstall it and hopefully that cures the problem?

As I wrote, I don't think you can't get rid of the dotted line (I see it too, on my installation of Word 2016). Reinstalling won't make a difference.

May I ask why you think the line is a problem?

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Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Verifying: I checked my Word 2016 installation. This is not a bug or anomaly, it is the way the program works. There are no options to change it. Re-installing will not help.

The command with the lines around it is the one that has the focus (the screen for that command is showing on the screen).

Here is a similar screenshot from Word 2010. There they use a box of a different color. In both versions, if you point at a different command with your mouse pointer but have not yet clicked on it, you get a little box. In the screenshot below, Info has the focus and is on my backstage screen; the mouse is pointed at the Open command.

00 deleteme 2.png

Again, not subject to user modification.

Like Stefan, I am curious as to why this is a problem for you.

Is just a problem to me because on other computers, I don't see the grey dotted lines and I prefer it that way. It just looks cleaner without the grey dotted lines.

I suspect the other computers are not running Word 2016 for Windows. I also suspect you'll have to learn to live with them as long as you are using this version of Word. Word 2013 is the same except the dotted lines are thinner. The next version will probably change it again. Microsoft likes to "update" its look with each release.

Office 2010, for example, doesn't have them.

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Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

I noticed in my Microsoft Office 2016, it has the grey dotted lines, but the office 2016 at my college campus doesn't even have the grey dotted lines. It just looks so much cleaner. I'm just wondering what is going on here and what is REALLY causing that problem. There gotta be a solution.

Like for instant, I see the same grey dotted lines on my desktop icons, but when I either right click then hit refresh or hit F5, then the grey dotted lines goes away. Or sometimes restarting explorer.exe in the task manager solves the problem.

So I am assuming there is a solution to getting rid of the "focused" box, is just that y'all haven't figured out the solutions.

In that case it may be due to a difference in display drivers. Updating yours may help - updating theirs may result in what you're seeing...

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Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Still no help at all

In that case, maybe you'll just have to learn to live with it.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]