UPDATE -- That's exactly what is was, folks. An invisible box, hiding in the
header/footer layer (which is the reason I couldn't just click on it to see
it). Had contained the company logo (this is stationery) but the user before
me just emptied the box rather than deleting the frame. Those responsible
will be sacked :-)

"SteveSullivanQED" wrote:

I have a 2-column Word 2003 document, and on the last paragraph of the right
column of one page, the word wrap/line break behavior changes in the middle
of a paragraph. I go from a 40(ish)-character line to a 30(ish)-character
line, with no codes, paragraph formatting changes or margin changes in
between. It's hard to describe, but imagine the lines breaking to avoid a
(nonexistent) blank picture in the lower right corner of a page.

If I cut the text and paste it back in the same place as unformatted text, I
get the same result.

If I paste it in elsewhere I get consistent 40(ish)-character lines.

If I reduce columns to 1, the last 5 lines or so of the first page of the
document still break inconsistently.