HOW TO REMOVE GRAPHIC LINES IN WORD

I recently sent a Word document out for publication.  But the document had some imbedded graphic lines and I was asked to remove them.  No problem, so I thought, but wait......I could not delete these lines!  I was now forced to understand how to deal with a wonderful "feature" in Word that is very frustrating... the auto formatted dashes. 

When using Word, if you enter a string of dashes, Word knows that what you really want to do is insert a horizontal rule, so it automatically inserts a "graphic line" in place of the dashes.  Once these lines have been created, they are almost impossible to remove unless you understand what has happened.  You cannot select the graphic line to delete it.  If you try to Cut/Paste around it, the line comes with the Cut section and is Pasted.  (I am so lucky that Word was so smart)  .......  Aaargh!

After some googling, I found a method to delete the lines. 
So I thought I would provide the sensible solution here:
--------------- (a string of dashes)

The problem is that the dashes get converted to Paragraph Borders.

Assuming you have no borders you want to retain,
1.  Do a CTL-A (or any command you prefer to Select All), then go to Format>Borders and Shading.

2.  On the lower right section be sure to Apply To = Paragraph

3.  Click the Preset Icon for None (even though it will probably appear to be selected) and when you click OK the 'lines' will be gone.

Unfortunately the dashes will be gone too, but you can retype them without triggering the autoborder feature as long as you don't press the Return key.
--------------- (another string of dashes)

If you have multiple lines and only want to delete some individual ones, don't do Select All.  Select the Paragraph marks just before and after the graphic instead of doing Select All.  Then continue with steps 2 and 3 above.
--------------- (another string of dashes, you can see that I use them frequently)

I have also found that an icon may sometimes be visible near the line.  If it is visible, you can click on the icon and there is a choice there to undo the auto correct that will allow you to undo the horizontal rule back to dashes.  And you can also go to the configuraton window for Auto Correct while typing where you can remove the check from borders.  It seems that the icon is only visible immediately after doing auto correct.  If trying to remove the line(s) later, you must use the method described above.
---------------(I won't mention the string of dashes this time, you probably recognize them by now)

For future reference you can turn the feature of as necessary if you go to Tools>AutoCorrect>AutoFormat As You Type and remove the check for Borders. Keep in mind that the feature only works 'as you type', so you can turn it back on any time after typing and it will not convert existing dashes.