Appearance of square brackets within text

N

Nick

I am using Word 2003 with XP Home.

I have been working on some medium sized documents (400 to 500K) and I have found grey square brackets ([ ]) showing up in the text above where I am writing. They do not declare themselves using the show punctuation button, and I can not delete them. They do not appear on the printed output.

Probably an easy one, but I don't understand. Thanks, Nick
 
J

Jay Freedman

They're bookmarks. You can turn the display of them on or off in the Tools >
Options > View dialog.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
N

Nick

Problem solved. Thanks very much.

As far as I know, I have never intentionally created any bookmarks.Is it
something that can be done accidentally?

Nick

Jay Freedman said:
They're bookmarks. You can turn the display of them on or off in the Tools
Options > View dialog.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup
so all may benefit.
I am using Word 2003 with XP Home.

I have been working on some medium sized documents (400 to 500K) and
I have found grey square brackets ([ ]) showing up in the text above
where I am writing. They do not declare themselves using the show
punctuation button, and I can not delete them. They do not appear on
the printed output.

Probably an easy one, but I don't understand. Thanks, Nick
 
J

Jay Freedman

Cross-references and tables of contents create bookmarks at the points they
refer to. That's probably where those came from.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
Problem solved. Thanks very much.

As far as I know, I have never intentionally created any bookmarks.Is
it something that can be done accidentally?

Nick

Jay Freedman said:
They're bookmarks. You can turn the display of them on or off in the
Tools > Options > View dialog.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so all may benefit.
I am using Word 2003 with XP Home.

I have been working on some medium sized documents (400 to 500K) and
I have found grey square brackets ([ ]) showing up in the text above
where I am writing. They do not declare themselves using the show
punctuation button, and I can not delete them. They do not appear on
the printed output.

Probably an easy one, but I don't understand. Thanks, Nick
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

But the bookmarks Word creates are always "hidden" and don't show the
brackets.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

Jay Freedman said:
Cross-references and tables of contents create bookmarks at the points they
refer to. That's probably where those came from.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
Problem solved. Thanks very much.

As far as I know, I have never intentionally created any bookmarks.Is
it something that can be done accidentally?

Nick

Jay Freedman said:
They're bookmarks. You can turn the display of them on or off in the
Tools > Options > View dialog.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so all may benefit.

Nick wrote:
I am using Word 2003 with XP Home.

I have been working on some medium sized documents (400 to 500K) and
I have found grey square brackets ([ ]) showing up in the text above
where I am writing. They do not declare themselves using the show
punctuation button, and I can not delete them. They do not appear on
the printed output.

Probably an easy one, but I don't understand. Thanks, Nick
 
G

Guest

You can toggle Bookmark View on/off independently (of hidden items) under
Tools,Options, View tab.

Terry

Suzanne S. Barnhill said:
But the bookmarks Word creates are always "hidden" and don't show the
brackets.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup
so
all may benefit.

Jay Freedman said:
Cross-references and tables of contents create bookmarks at the points they
refer to. That's probably where those came from.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
Problem solved. Thanks very much.

As far as I know, I have never intentionally created any bookmarks.Is
it something that can be done accidentally?

Nick

They're bookmarks. You can turn the display of them on or off in the
Tools > Options > View dialog.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so all may benefit.

Nick wrote:
I am using Word 2003 with XP Home.

I have been working on some medium sized documents (400 to 500K) and
I have found grey square brackets ([ ]) showing up in the text above
where I am writing. They do not declare themselves using the show
punctuation button, and I can not delete them. They do not appear on
the printed output.

Probably an easy one, but I don't understand. Thanks, Nick
 
A

aalaan

Crikey! Suzanne on *receiving* end!

You can toggle Bookmark View on/off independently (of hidden items) under
Tools,Options, View tab.

Terry

Suzanne S. Barnhill said:
But the bookmarks Word creates are always "hidden" and don't show the
brackets.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup
so
all may benefit.

Jay Freedman said:
Cross-references and tables of contents create bookmarks at the points they
refer to. That's probably where those came from.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so
all may benefit.

Nick wrote:
Problem solved. Thanks very much.

As far as I know, I have never intentionally created any bookmarks.Is
it something that can be done accidentally?

Nick

They're bookmarks. You can turn the display of them on or off in the
Tools > Options > View dialog.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so all may benefit.

Nick wrote:
I am using Word 2003 with XP Home.

I have been working on some medium sized documents (400 to 500K) and
I have found grey square brackets ([ ]) showing up in the text above
where I am writing. They do not declare themselves using the show
punctuation button, and I can not delete them. They do not appear on
the printed output.

Probably an easy one, but I don't understand. Thanks, Nick
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

I'm pretty sure this just toggles the display of bookmarks in that dialog,
not in the text. I just looked at a document with a TOC (and consequently
bookmarks created by Word). With that box checked and the View option
checked, I see *no* bookmarks in the document.

What is even stranger, though, is that display of bookmarks must be
per-document. I checked the View option for that specific document, checked
the display, closed the document, then went back to Options to uncheck it
and found it unchecked. Fearing that I might have clicked Cancel rather than
OK after checking the box, I reopened the document, went to Options, and
found it checked. That is, checked for that specific document and not for
any other--one more of the View Options that appear to be application-wide
that are in fact document-specific. <sigh> Is this made clearer in Word
2007?


--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

You can toggle Bookmark View on/off independently (of hidden items) under
Tools,Options, View tab.

Terry

Suzanne S. Barnhill said:
But the bookmarks Word creates are always "hidden" and don't show the
brackets.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup
so
all may benefit.

Jay Freedman said:
Cross-references and tables of contents create bookmarks at the points they
refer to. That's probably where those came from.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup
so
all may benefit.

Nick wrote:
Problem solved. Thanks very much.

As far as I know, I have never intentionally created any bookmarks.Is
it something that can be done accidentally?

Nick

They're bookmarks. You can turn the display of them on or off in the
Tools > Options > View dialog.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so all may benefit.

Nick wrote:
I am using Word 2003 with XP Home.

I have been working on some medium sized documents (400 to 500K) and
I have found grey square brackets ([ ]) showing up in the text above
where I am writing. They do not declare themselves using the show
punctuation button, and I can not delete them. They do not appear on
the printed output.

Probably an easy one, but I don't understand. Thanks, Nick
 
M

macropod

But the bookmarks Word creates are always "hidden" and don't show the
brackets.

Not necessarily.

For some strange reason Word sometimes creates bookmarks with names like
'OLE_LINK1' etc, when text is merely copied & pasted. It also does this by
design if text is copied and pasted as a link. These bookmarks show up in
the normal way.

If Word has created any 'OLE_LINK' bookmarks that shouldn't be there,
deleting them won't do any harm.

Cheers
 

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