My Blank Document has Underlining In It!

I received an e-mail from a reader asking for help because every time he opens a document in MS Word or Outlook, everything is underlined when he types. He wanted to know why this had happened and how to rectify the situation.

My Reply:

The blank document that you start with when you open MS Word (Document 1) and all the documents that you create by pressing the New button on the Standard toolbar or by choosing Blank Document in the File | New dialog are based upon the Normal.dot template, that also stores most of your customizations, such as changes to styles or your toolbars.

If you change a style in Normal.dot, such as your default font or if you change the margins or page size, that will affect every blank document that you create from that point forward. If you save text in your Normal.dot, that text will appear in every blank document that you create.

Long story short, you have somehow saved your Normal.dot with the underline function turned on.

The simplest way to fix the problem is to clean up your Normal.dot.

1. In Windows Explorer, press CTRL + F, and search for Normal.dot. Or select Start | Find | Files or folders and search for Normal.dot.
    
2. In Windows XP, the folder that contains the Normal.dot is a hidden folder.
    
3. In order to find Normal.dot, you will need to go to Tools | Folder Options and select the View tab and check the radio button for Show hidden files and folders.
    
4. Depending on your settings in Windows Explorer, the search results may not display the .dot file extension, but may only show the word Normal. Once you have found it, do NOT click on the file as it will only create a new document based on the template.
    
5. Instead, right-click the file and select Open. Once you have opened it, deselect underline, save the file and close it.

You should then no longer have underlining in your new documents in MS Word or Outlook, as you obviously are using MS Word as your Editor in Outlook.

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