How do I get rid of slight blue background in Word?

Question

I have noticed that when I cut and paste from Wikipedia, onto a Word document, a slight bluish background persists. How do I get rid of this background? I am not sure what it is. It looks perhaps like a watermark.

I've tried to remove it by using the first Formatting bar suggestion, and I've tried working with Format - Background - No Fill, and also choosing a white background, but nothing has worked. I believe what I'm referring to is similar to the very lightly shaded green boxes Yahoo Answers uses on their pages, to frame questions and details. If you look at Yahoo Answers Open Question page, they list them with a Zebra stripe alternating background from white to very light grey. That's another example of the background I'm talking about. When I attempted to change the background color, everything changed color EXCEPT the light background color box. I need to get rid of thing. I've tried to paste onto another word document and the background shading follows it. I'm trying to put together an ebook and I'm terrified how this background or color box is going to do effect the compiling of my final document. So, I urgently need your expertise! Thanks.

Answer 1

Try this (assuming you have a recent version of Word but NOT 2007):

1. With the cursor, select the text with the background.
2. Find the Formatting toolbar button that looks like a highlighter (it usually has a yellow line underneath it) and click the drop-down arrow next to it.
3. Select None as the highlighting.

Hopefully, that will clear the background.

Answer 2

Bluish Background

Answer 3

i found a way for this to work as none of the others did. upper left side of Word there is the format painter. highlight text that does not have the blue background and then click format painter. then highlight the text that has the blue background and it will be gone.

Answer 4

When you paste into Word, I am assuming it comes in in table format. Therefore highlight the whole table (right button of mouse on the little top box at the top left of the table) down to table properties, borders and shading and click on none for the fill. I think this should do it.

Answer 5

When you paste in Word, choose Edit -> Paste Special - then paste as unformatted text.

You should not get any blue or formatting from the clipboard contents.

Answer 6

Highlight text, right-click, hover mouse over "styles", select "clear formatting".

Answer 7

Click anywhere on the table and click - accept insertion.

Answer 8

so glad that I found this topic already answered! It's like you've read my thoughts!