Show/Hide Nonprinting Word Characters
Certain characters, called nonprinting characters, will not appear in your printed document but do affect your document layout. You can elect to see these characters on the screen as you type or to have them remain invisible. For example, the end-of-paragraph marker marks the end of a paragraph and if you choose to have it display, appears wherever you press the Enter key.
Selecting the Show/Hide button in the Paragraph group displays nonprinting characters. Deselecting the the Show/Hide button in the Paragraph group hides nonprinting characters. There are six nonprinting characters. The following table describes them:
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Nonprinting Characters |
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| Character | Denotes |
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The tab marker, an arrow, marks the amount of space to the next tab stop. It appears wherever you press the Tab key. |
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. |
The space marker, a dot, appears wherever you press the Spacebar. |
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¶ |
The end-of-a-paragraph marker marks the end of a paragraph and appears wherever you press the Enter key. |
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Hidden text is text that you can choose whether it displays and/or prints. If you choose to display hidden text, it displays with dotted lines under it. |
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You can use optional hyphens to control line breaks. Optional hyphens tell Word where to break a word if the word falls at the end of a line. Press Ctrl+hyphen to insert an optional hyphen. |
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When you insert an object in Word, you can use a display anchor to tether the object to text so it will stay where you put it. |
Show/Hide Nonprinting Characters:
- Choose the Home tab.
- Click the Show/Hide button in the Paragraph group. The Show/Hide button appears in a contrasting color when it is selected.
Note: The Show/Hide button is a toggle button. If nonprinting characters are set to be hidden on-screen, click the Show/Hide button to display them. If nonprinting characters are set to appear on-screen, click the Show/Hide button to hide them.
Can I choose which nonprinting characters appear on-screen?
Yes. 1) Choose the File tab. A menu appears on the left side of the window. 2) Click Options. The Word Options dialog box opens. A menu appears along the left side of the dialog box. 3) Choose Display. 4) In the Always Show These Formatting Marks on the Screen section, check the formatting marks you want to see. If you want to see all of the formatting marks, check Show All Formatting Marks. Checking the Show All Formatting Marks option has the same effect as selecting the Show/Hide button. 5) Click OK.
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