How to Remove Underline in Word

There’s a line under your text in Word that won’t go away no matter how many times you click the U button. To remove an ordinary underline, select the text and press Ctrl+U (press it twice for double or other underline styles). If the line is wavy, blue and clickable, colored from tracked changes, or stretches across the whole page, it isn’t underline formatting, and each type has its own fix below.

Figure Out Which Kind of Line You Have

These steps are for Word for Microsoft 365 on Windows (the app the old “Office 365” name referred to), and most also work in Word 2024, 2021, 2019 and 2016. Match what you see to a row, then jump to that section.

What it looks like	What it is	Fix
Straight line under some words, same color as the text	Underline formatting	Ctrl+U or Clear All Formatting
Red or blue wavy line, never prints	Spelling or grammar check	Fix, Add to Dictionary, or hide for the document
Blue underlined text that opens a page when you Ctrl+click it	Hyperlink	Remove Hyperlink or change the Hyperlink style
Colored underline on new text, with a bar in the margin	Tracked change (inserted text)	Accept or reject the change
Line across the full width of the page that you can’t select	Paragraph border	Borders > No Border

Remove Regular Underline Formatting

Microsoft’s Underline text or spaces page explains the behavior that trips people up: Ctrl+U removes a single underline, but other underline styles (double, thick, dotted, wavy) need Ctrl+U pressed twice. The first press converts them to a single underline, the second removes it.

1. Select the underlined text. Include the spaces between words if they’re underlined too.
2. Press Ctrl+U, or select Home > Underline (the U button).
3. If a line is still there, press Ctrl+U again.

Here’s why clicking U sometimes seems to do nothing. Say Tobias selects a paragraph where only the client’s name is underlined. Because the selection is mixed, the first click can underline everything, and the second click removes it all. Watch the U button: when it looks highlighted, the selection is fully underlined.

Use the Font Dialog for Stubborn Styles

1. Select the text and press Ctrl+D, or select the Font dialog box launcher (the small arrow in the corner of the Font group on the Home tab).
2. Open the Underline style list and choose (none).
3. Select OK.

This dialog also shows whether the text uses Words only underlining, which skips the spaces, or a separate underline color, either of which can make the line look different from what you expected.

Clear All the Character Formatting at Once

If the text also has bold, color or font changes you don’t want, select it and choose Home > Clear All Formatting in the Font group. Microsoft’s Clear all text formatting article says it removes formatting such as bold, underline and italics and returns text to its default style. The keyboard route is Ctrl+Spacebar, which removes manual character formatting. Both strip every manual format, so use them only when you want plain text.

Remove Underlining From the Whole Document

For a short document, press Ctrl+A to select everything, then press Ctrl+U until the U button is no longer highlighted (usually twice). This also removes underlining you meant to keep, such as a book title.

To remove underlining only where it exists, without touching the rest of the formatting, use Replace with formatting:

1. Press Ctrl+H to open Find and Replace.
2. Leave Find what empty, select More, then Format > Font, choose a single underline in Underline style and select OK.
3. Click in Replace with, leave it empty, choose Format > Font, set Underline style to (none) and select OK.
4. Select Replace All. Repeat with other underline styles, such as double, if needed.

If Format settings from an earlier search are still there, select No Formatting first. Microsoft lists Ctrl+H as the shortcut for replacing text and specific formatting, and its Replace text page covers the More and Format buttons. For more on the Replace box, see how to find and replace in Word.

Get Rid of Red and Blue Wavy Lines

Wavy lines are Word’s proofing marks, not formatting, so Ctrl+U never touches them, and they don’t print. According to Microsoft’s Check spelling and grammar page, red squiggly lines mark possible spelling errors and blue ones mark possible grammar errors.

• One word: right-click it and pick a suggestion, or choose Add to Dictionary if it’s spelled correctly (a client surname like “Okonkwo-Hale”, for example). Choose Ignore All to skip that word in this document only.
• This document only: go to File > Options > Proofing, pick the document in the Exceptions for list, then select Hide spelling errors in this document only and Hide grammar errors in this document only.
• Every document: in the same Proofing screen, clear Check spelling as you type and Mark grammar errors as you type.

If you change your mind, Recheck Document on the same Proofing screen brings back words you ignored.

Turning the checks off hides real mistakes too, so the document-only option is usually the better choice. Press F7 to run a full check before you send the file. If the marks are missing when you want them back, turn spell check back on in Word.

Remove the Underline From Hyperlinks

Decide first whether you want to keep the link working.

• Remove the link but keep the text: right-click the link and choose Remove Hyperlink.
• Remove every link in the document: press Ctrl+A, then Ctrl+Shift+F9. That shortcut unlinks fields, so other fields such as an automatic date or a table of contents also turn into plain text. Check the document afterward.
• Keep one link clickable but not underlined: select it and press Ctrl+U (or use Ctrl+D and set Underline style to (none)).
• Keep all links clickable but not underlined: press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S to open the Styles pane, find the Hyperlink style, open its menu and choose Modify, then turn off the underline and select OK. If Hyperlink isn’t in the list, select Options at the bottom of the pane and set Select styles to show to All styles.

The first two methods come from Microsoft’s Remove or turn off hyperlinks page, which also explains how to stop new links forming as you type: File > Options > Proofing > AutoCorrect Options > AutoFormat As You Type, then clear Internet and network paths with hyperlinks. Links without an underline can be hard to spot, so consider a different color. For adding links back later, see how to make a hyperlink in Word.

Clear Underlines Left by Track Changes

With Track Changes on, Word shows inserted text underlined in the reviewer’s color. Removing the underline with Ctrl+U would just record another change. Instead, resolve the edit using Microsoft’s Track changes in Word controls:

1. Select the Review tab.
2. To keep the new text, select Accept (or the arrow under it and Accept All Changes). To discard it, use Reject.
3. To stop new edits being tracked, select Track Changes again to turn it off.

Switching the markup view to Simple Markup or No Markup only hides the underlines; the changes are still in the file and will show for the next reader. More detail is in the walkthrough on tracking changes in Word.

Delete a Line That Is Really a Border

A line that runs margin to margin and can’t be selected is usually a bottom border on a paragraph. Word adds one automatically when you type three hyphens, underscores, equal signs or similar characters on a line by themselves and press Enter.

1. Click in the paragraph just above the line.
2. On the Home tab, select the arrow next to Borders.
3. Choose No Border.

Microsoft describes this fix on its Remove a line in Word page. If the line seems to jump to the next paragraph when you delete text, the border is shared by several paragraphs with the same formatting: select all of them, then choose No Border. Pressing Ctrl+Q, which removes paragraph formatting, is another way to clear it.

To catch the automatic line as it appears, press Backspace immediately and Word keeps your characters without the line. To stop it for good, go to File > Options > Proofing > AutoCorrect Options > AutoFormat As You Type and clear Border lines, as Microsoft’s Insert a horizontal line page explains. If you want a deliberate line later, here’s how to add a solid line in Word, and how Word’s other borders work.

Stop the Underline From Coming Back

• Underlined spaces or tabs: select Home > Show/Hide ¶ to see spaces and tab marks. An underline on blank space at the end of a line is attached to those characters.
• A style with underline built in: if new text keeps arriving underlined, the style may be the cause. On the Home tab, right-click the style in the Styles gallery, choose Modify and turn off underline. Choose New documents based on this template only if you want the change for future files too. Ctrl+Shift+N applies the Normal style to a paragraph.
• Pasted text: when text from a website or email arrives underlined, paste it, select the Paste Options button that appears, and choose Keep Text Only so Word drops the source formatting. Microsoft’s page on controlling the formatting when you paste text explains the other paste choices.

Style changes are covered on Microsoft’s Customize or create new styles page. If the Normal style itself is the problem, the same approach is used to set a default font in Word.

Other Underline Puzzles

Why Does New Text Start Underlined When I Type?

Word carries the formatting of the character before the cursor. Press Ctrl+U once before typing to switch it off, or Ctrl+Spacebar to drop all manual character formatting at that spot.

Will Red and Blue Squiggles Show Up When I Print or Send a PDF?

No. They are on-screen proofing marks only. Tracked-change underlines are different: they print unless you accept or reject the changes, or clear Print Markup under File > Print > Settings.

Do These Steps Work in Word for the Web or on a Mac?

Ctrl+U (Command+U on a Mac) and the Underline button work there too, and Microsoft lists Clear All Formatting for Word for Mac. The File > Options paths and several Windows shortcuts above apply to the Windows desktop app, so menu locations differ on other versions.

Next time a line won’t budge, check the table at the top first. Identifying the kind of line takes a few seconds and saves a lot of clicking on the U button.