How to Set the Tab Character Format Symbol

[BrianWren]

Ordinarily, the non-printing character that represents a tab is an arrow
pointing to the right.

Sometimes (like right now) it appears more like an underscore. (The
displayed character is actually just a hair higher than an underscore.

What do I do to get word to knock this queer behavior off?

Micrsoft Word 2000 (9.0.8961 SP-3)

If you respond by email, please use (e-mail address removed).

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I have neither seen this nor seen it reported, but it might be caused by the
same glitch that's causing the cursor to shrink, so you might try the same
treatment: switch to 500% Zoom and back.

 

[BrianWren]

I'm afraid that didn’t do it. Oddly, I do have one tab character that is
showing normally.

This happens to me when I copy things from IE to the clipboard, then paste
into Word. When I paste unformatted, this doesn’t happen. Odd.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Since HTML doesn't support tabs, whatever you're pasting is not a tab
character but likely a bunch of nonbreaking spaces.

 

[BrianWren]

Perhaps implied in your post is that text pasted from a web page is still
HTML after the pasting, in which case the following is moot.

But when I type a tab in Word after having pasted in content from a web
page, the newly typed tab still shows as an almost-underscore.

Plus, whatever these characters are, the paragraph containing the character
responds as expected to formatting for tab stops, and hanging indents...

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Fair enough. What happens if you select the tab character and press
Ctrl+Spacebar? Also, I find that sometimes the representation of tab
characters on my screen is a little wonky; this is usually cleared by
scrolling up and down or switching to Print Preview and back.