paragraph symbol/character appears throughout saved Word documents

[janey2]

The paragraph symbol/character appears throughout all Microsoft Office Word
documents that are saved on my computer. I just noticed it today when I
opened a file. Then every other Word file that I opened also has these
symbols in them. If I copy the body of the text and paste it into a
different word processing program like Star Office, the symbols do not show
up. What is going on? Is my program corrupt? Is this a sign of a virus?
Can I get rid of this by uninstalling and re-installing the program?
Thank-you for any advice,
Janey2

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

It sounds like you're talking about non-printing marks that are used as
navigation/diagnostic aids in Word. Press Ctrl+Shift+8 to toggle them
on/off. The more you use Word, the more useful they will become to you.

 

[grammatim]

(1) Reinstalling Word almost never solves anything.

(2) I don't know how anyone can work in Word without the paragraph
marks showing, but if you really want them to go away -- and you're
_also_ seeing a dot in every blank space -- then type Ctrl-* (Ctrl-
Shift-8). Or click the paragraph symbol button in the toolbar.

(3) If you're _only_ seeing paragraph marks and no other non-printing
characters, go to Options > View and uncheck "paragraph marks" (though
I can't imagine why you'd want to). How you get there differs in
different versions of Word.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Oh, for crying out loud! See
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/NonPrintChars.htm

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[grammatim]

Now, now, it's not her fault that when she searched "paragraph marks"
she didn't come across the answer to the single most frequently asked
question in this newsgroup ...

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

If I search Word 2003's Help for "paragraph marks," the first hit is "Show
or hide formatting marks."

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

Now, now, it's not her fault that when she searched "paragraph marks"
she didn't come across the answer to the single most frequently asked
question in this newsgroup ...

 

[janey2]

Okay, sorry! I have used Office for years - had 03 version - and never ever
saw this, so I had no idea it was common. It never occured to me to do a
search of paragraph symbols.
Thank-you to all for the help.