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How to Remove Highlights in Word / Unhighlight

Obey the following two options to remove highlights in Word.

Option 1: Remove the text highlight color.

To remove highlights in Word:

  1. Select the text with the highlights.
  2. If you want to remove all highlights, select all the text by press Ctrl+A.
  3. Click on the Home tab.
  4. In the paragraph group, click the shading button.
  5. From the shading palette, click on No Color to unhighlight the text.
Go to Home>Shading>No color

This is the easiest option to remove text highlights in Word.

Option 2: Remove highlights in Word using Find and Replace.

Using the Find and Replace command in Word, you can remove all highlights.

Basically, here’s how it works: Word will search throughout the whole document in search of any highlighted text and when that text is found, it’ll then replace it with the same text without highlights.

Without further ado, let’s get into work:

  • Press Ctrl+Home to move the insertion pointer to the tip-top of the document.
  • Press Ctrl+H to display the Find and Replace dialog. Alternatively, go to the Home tab, in the Editing group, click on the Replace button.
  • Click in the Find what text box and leave it empty. If there’s text in the text box, make sure to delete it.
  • Whilst the insertion pointer is in the Find what text box, click on the More button.
Click on the More button of the Find and Replace dialog - remove highlights in Word
  • The Find and Replace dialog box will expand with more settings.
  • At the bottom of the dialog, click on Format and select Highlight.
  • After selecting Highlight, you should see the Word Highlight under the Find what text box.
Click on Format>Highligh - remove highlights in Word
  • Click to place the insertion pointer in the Replace with text box.
  • Click on Format and choose Highlight. The Word highlight will be placed under the Replace with text box.
  • Repeat the above step again. Click on Format and choose Highlight. This time around Not Highlight will be written below the Replace with text box.

The Find and Replace dialog box should look similar to the screenshot below:

remove highlights in Word
  • Click on the Replace All button.

At this point, all highlights in your Word document will be removed.