New email is not blank

[Jim]

Something happened to my Outlook 2003 last night. Now when I go to compose a
new email it is not blank. The document has a character in the main body
that I cannot delete. The character sort of looks like a musical note...2
vertical lines connected at the top with the line on the left having a small
backwards facing P. When I put the cursor in front of the character and
press the return key another one of the same characters appear. If I try and
highlight the character in order to cut it out, it highlights fine but when I
press cut, it does not erase...Help!

 

[Roady [MVP]]

You've got "show markup" enabled. Press CTRL+SHIFT+8 to toggle it off again.

 

[Youngergirl44]

That's a paragraph mark. You're using Word to edit your emails and Word is
showing formatting marks. To remove them, you can do one of two things:

1. If you still want to use Word to edit your messages, open a new email and
go to Tools - Options. On the view tab, uncheck the boxes in the Formatting
Marks section. The marks should disappear right away.

2. If you don't want to use Word to edit your messages, in the main Outlook
window, go to Tools - Options. On the Mail Format tab, uncheck the box that
says "Use Microsoft Office Word 2003 to edit e-mail messages" (or something
to that effect. Close any open messages (saving them if you want to retain
the content) and then reopen them. The marks should be gone.

Hope this helps!

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

Something happened to my Outlook 2003 last night. Now when I go to
compose a
new email it is not blank. The document has a character in the main body
that I cannot delete. The character sort of looks like a musical note...2
vertical lines connected at the top with the line on the left having a
small
backwards facing P.

That's a Pilchrow mark and signifies a new paragraph in Word. You have
enabled viewing formatting marks. Press Ctrl-Shift-8 to toggle them.

 

[Jim]

Thanks everyone! It was the formatting marks..whew! I just did what you
said about unchecking Formatting and bingo! BTW the CTRL+SHIFT+8 thing
didn't work..but thanks anyway..