Illustrator Text adding a black shadow behind text that doesn't appear to be a drop shadow effect

[Justine31309383yf2z]

Hi There,

Very new to Illustrator so I may just be using the wrong search terms to find a solution. In any case,  when I copy and paste the bodies of text I'm creating in Illustrator into say, MSWord, a black shadow appears as per the screenshot :

Many sources have recommeded removing a shadow affect and/or stroke using the appearance window, however, these effects aren't part of my text (see screenshot of the relevent appearance window below):

How on earth do I remove this black line when copying and pasting my text element into other programs?

[Ton Frederiks · Accepted solution]

It may be caused by the default black fill for the characters.

With the text selected (with the selection tool), double click the Characters item in the Appearance panel and set the fill to none.

[Justine31309383yf2z]

That worked! 😁😅

Thank you so much, really appreciate the help!🙏

Have a stunning day/evening wherever in the world you may be 🙂

[Ton Frederiks]

Thank you, good to hear that helped.