Dot appears under letter

[pbkry2r]

I have a movable dot under a letter in a manuscript I'm editing and I can't
figure out what it's for or how to delete it. It's under a does-not-equal
sign, and when I delete the sign and replace it with a new one, the dot moves
to another letter. When I delete the letters and retype them, the dot
returns to its original spot. I'm not talking about the dots that appear
between letters when you click the show/hide formatting key. I'm not
tracking changes or adding comments in this document, but I am using
bookmarks. Could the bookmark be leaving this dot?

Windows XP Pro, Word 2007, all with current service packs.

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

Does the "dot" turn on/off when you press Ctrl+Shift+8/* (top row)?

If so, it sounds like the paragraph marker is using a non-standard symbol.
What is your default font?

Herb Tyson MS MVP
Author of the Word 2007 Bible
Blog: http://word2007bible.herbtyson.com
Web: http://www.herbtyson.com

 

[Peter T. Daniels]

Can you select the dot? (Put the cursor before or after it and type
Shift-RightArrow or -LeftArrow.) If you can, then you can delete it --
but before you delete it, press Alt-X and it will tell you the Unicode
number for the character, and you can look it up in Insert Symbol.

 

[pbkry2r]

Thanks for your suggestion. I tried that, both clicking the symbol and using
the keyboard shortcut that you suggest and the dot stayed where it was. I
get all the standard formatting symbols when I toggle them on. I'm using
Times New Roman. I changed the font but the dot remained. I deleted the
symbol it was under, the does-not-equal sign, and the dot scooted to the
space to the left. I inserted a new does-not-equal sign and it went back
under it. I inserted a different symbol, same behavior. I cut-and-pasted it
to a new document with a different template and got the same thing. I
printed the new document, and the dot printed. Very strange.

 

[pbkry2r]

Thanks! After much trial and error, I was able to select the dot, press Alt-X
and it gave me the Unicode. Turns out it's a dot from the private use area
of the symbols. Well, someone at my company must need it ...

Thanks again!

 

[Peter T. Daniels]

If you find out who created it, you could point out to them that
there's a "Combining Diacritic" for dot-under, which might do what
they need without hanging around when the letter it's under is
deleted. (Somehow it knows to disappear when you delete its host
letter.)

 

[pbkry2r]

I suspect it's some sort of coding gone wrong. This manuscript was scanned
in from a printed book and converted to Word. The default language on the
document was Asian (Japanese), which wasn't even listed as a language option
for my version of word. I made a new template and copied the files over as
plain text so I could set the default at U.S. English. Perhaps some errant
coding followed it over. Thanks for your suggestions!