How do I get rid of horizontal arrows?

[vicforman]

At the beginning of every paragraph of all of my saved word documents there
is a horizontal arrow pointing right in the indentation space.

I have already tried the 'arrowhead' button in the 'drawing toolbar" for
removing these arrows but this did not work.

Does anyone know how to get rid of these arrows?

 

[DeanH]

What version of Word are you using? This always helps with the possible
solution.
Anyway, what you are seeing are the Non-Printing Characters, use Ctrl+Shft+8
or the ¶ icon (on the Home ribbon or the Standard toolbar) to toggle the view
of these.
For further information on how these characters can be of use see:
http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/NonPrintChars.htm
Hope this helps
DeanH

 

[vicforman]

Thanks DeanH! I now know what these arrows are (apparently 'tabs') and that
they occur wherever and whenever I used/use the tab key unfortunately I still
do not know how to disable this function when I press tab to indent.

I am using Word 2003.

Any suggestions?

 

[DeanH]

How about not pressing the Tab button?
Instead, modify the Style, specifically the Format, Paragraph Left Indent to
the size you want, then all paragraphs based on that style will have the
indent automatically.
Word works best of Styles are used instead of manual formatting, if you are
new to Styles, then see the following very useful and informative website:
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/index.html and in particular the section on
Styles in Microsoft Word.
All the best
DeanH

 

[Peter T. Daniels]

If turning off Show Non-Printing Characters (as explained by Dean)
doesn't turn off the display of tab characters, then they are turned
on in Tools > Options > Display (the label may be a bit different in
Word2003). You'll find a list of about half a dozen checkboxes for
various things you can have always showing or not (including tabs,
paragraph marks, spaces, etc.).

But, especially if you don't want to use Styles, you should have your
tab and paragraph marks showing so you can tell what's going on in
your document as you type and won't be surprised by blank space or
extra pages showing up where you don't want them.