The Square Black Dot

[Ridge Kennedy]

In a doc, (Office 2003, Word, XP (tools>options>"All" checked visible) there
is a square black dot to the left of the text boundary -- one for each
paragraph with heading styles 1-4. No dot for headings 5- and lower. I
know I've seen something about the dot somewhere, but can't find it. What's
the dot about and what, if anything, does it do?

Ridge

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

In this particular instance, it indicates that the style is formatted as
"Keep with next." See http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/NonPrintChars.htm
for more. This can be vital in troubleshooting problems with outlines. Many
users, especially if they use Outline view, create outlines by applying the
built-in heading styles, but, as you have noted, Headings 1-4 are formatted
as "Keep with next." If you don't have any body text-level text between
them, then Word has severe pagination problems! In such cases the solution
is to remove the KWN formatting from, say, Heading 3 and 4.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Charles Kenyon]

It, like the other non-printing characters, doesn't "do" anything. It just
shows you something. The paragraph mark tells you that you (or the typist)
pressed the Enter key. The black dot tells you that paragraph formatting
involving placement of the paragraph has been applied. Examples of such
formatting are space before, space after, keep lines together, and keep with
next.
--
Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide




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[Ridge Kennedy]

You are magnificent. Thanks. R.

 

[alardvark]

You are magnificent. Thanks. R.

(re the dots) Yes they are Ridge! I'm a relative beginner but I
actually knew the answer to that one (from previously having my mystery
solved here) and was about to give it when I was pipped to the post by
the experts. It's all to do with the keep with next option.