I'm working on a multipage table created by someone else, and randomly scattered through the table are these mysterious boxes or sub-cells that show up when I click on some of the text items.

The boxes are sized to the text and so don't fill the cell, and display a grey, three-dot tab on the left when clicked. When unclicked, they are invisible, although the text within them displays normally.

I suppose these are some sort of a feature rather than a bug, but I have never seen them before and I've been using Word since Version 1.0.

The problem is that they're a pain in the ass to manage and also complicate the process of formatting the text (especially since some of the text in a given cell is inside the box and some is not). Perhaps if I knew what they were supposed to do, I could take advantage of them, but I'd be happy just knowing how to get rid of them.

Can you attach a document to a post with a small amount of some representative data (delete anything sensitive)? You do this via the paperclip symbol on the 'Go Advanced' tab at the bottom of this screen.

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

My first time using this interface. Hope the picture is actually attached.

Attached Images

Picture1.png (289.6 KB, 20 views)

I did ask for a document ... not a picture. That said, it appears your document has a content controls at the insertion point.

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

Thanks — that's what I needed: the name of the "feature."

And now I've done some quick reading on Content Controls, and I suppose they could be useful under some bizarre set of circumstances.

I'm curious, though — right-clicking to bring up the menu and then selecting Remove Content Control always takes multiple tries: 2, 3, or 4. Why is that?

Content controls are very useful for use in forms and the like. A search of these forums will turn up numerous discussions on their use.

As for why it might take multiple tries to remove one, that's probably because someone has inserted one into the same space multiple times (e.g. by copy/paste). Certain types of content control can be nested.

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

Thanks! That's done the trick. I might event use Content Controls in the future for forms creation.