When I type (word 2007), the formatting marks appear. if i turn them off, my
text disappears. if I leave them on, the text is there, but the doc is blank
in print preview and print.
If one of the "formatting marks" you see is a dotted underline under all the
text, it's all formatted as Hidden. If that happens in new blank documents, the
Hidden formatting is applied to the empty paragraph in the Normal.dotm template.
If that's the case, press Ctrl+A to select everything, right-click it, and
choose Font. Uncheck the Hidden option in the dialog, and click the Default
button at the lower left before clicking OK.