square brackets and grey background – why?

[eNGiNe]

Just been sent a Word 2010 document by a colleague. When I open it, all the content is on a grey background as though a grey highlighter has been used. There's also an opening square bracket at the start of the text, whch I can't delete.

What's going on? and how do I just get hold of the text and formatting so I can start editing?



Thanks in advance!

[macropod]

What you're describing is indicative of a Word 2007+ document that has been formatted with editing restrictions, though read-only protection hasn't been applied. You should be able to edit the content at will. If not, it's possible the sender has wrongly applied forms protection to the document, instead of read-only protection.

[eNGiNe]

Thanks, Paul – that was it.

N