Which command displays hidden formatting marks in a document including paragraph and spacing marks?

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To display or hide formatting marks (e.g., spaces, tabs, and paragraph breaks) in a Microsoft Word document:

Word for Windows

  1. In Word 2010, on the tab, click . In Word 2007, from the Office Button menu, select near the bottom right corner of the menu.
  2. Select from the listing at the left.
  3. In the section titled "Always show these formatting marks on the screen", check or uncheck the appropriate boxes to view the marks of your choice. To show or hide them all, select .
  4. To save your changes, click .

Word for Mac OS X

  1. From the menu, select .
  2. Select .
  3. In the section titled "Nonprinting characters", check or uncheck the appropriate boxes to view the marks of your choice. Check to see all formatting marks.
  4. To save your changes, click .

You can also toggle between displaying and hiding formatting marks. To do so:

  • In Word for Windows, on the tab, in the group, click the paragraph icon.
  • In Word for Mac OS X, click the paragraph icon in the Standard toolbar. If you don't see the icon, from the menu, choose , and then check .

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Last modified on 2018-01-18 13:09:34.

Updated: 12/31/2020 by

Which command displays hidden formatting marks in a document including paragraph and spacing marks?

Special marks that are hidden by default that affect how text is displayed in a document. For example, with formatting marks enabled soft and hard returns are visible (shown right). In this example, the soft returns look like arrows pointing left and the hard returns is a paragraph mark, which looks like a backwards 'P'. Formatting marks are often used to troubleshoot a document's layout, appearance, and any printing problems and can be enabled or disabled depending on your preference.

Enabling or disabling formatting marks

Tip

With Microsoft programs that support formatting marks press the Ctrl+* (Ctrl+Shift+8) shortcut key to enable and disable formatting marks.

Which command displays hidden formatting marks in a document including paragraph and spacing marks?

The formatting marks feature can also be enabled or disabled by clicking the paragraph symbol in the toolbar, as shown in the picture. If the formatting marks button is not visible in your toolbar, you can change this setting. Check the View drop-down menu (Microsoft Word 2003 and earlier) or the Home tab (Microsoft Word 2007 and later) for an option to display the formatting marks button.

Types of formatting marks

Below, is a list of the different formatting marks you'll see when enabled with a brief description.

Conditional hyphen

Which command displays hidden formatting marks in a document including paragraph and spacing marks?
Any hyphen not entered manually entered is shown as a conditional hyphen mark. These look like a dash with a small line extending down on the right side (shown left).

Field code

Which command displays hidden formatting marks in a document including paragraph and spacing marks?
A field code is a command or code that instructs Microsoft Word to insert special items, such as the current date, current page number, or custom graphics. For example, to display the updated current date in a document, use the {date} field code.

To create a new field code, press Ctrl+F9, and to toggle the display of field codes, press Alt+F9.

Line breaks

Which command displays hidden formatting marks in a document including paragraph and spacing marks?
A line break is a break in the current line of text that doesn't create a new paragraph and is often done using the shortcut Shift+Enter. The image to the left shows that the line break resembles a symbol of an arrow pointing down and to the left. The same symbol is found on the Enter key on many computer keyboards.

Pagination breaks

A page break that is inserted manually into the document is shown when formatting marks are enabled. Below, is a picture and an example of a page break mark. There is also a column and section break. To delete pagination breaks, move your cursor in front of the page break mark and press the Del.

Which command displays hidden formatting marks in a document including paragraph and spacing marks?

Paragraph marks

Which command displays hidden formatting marks in a document including paragraph and spacing marks?
The paragraph mark or pilcrow follows any new paragraph in a document. By default, when pressing the Enter, Microsoft Word and most other programs create a new paragraph. The paragraph continues until Enter is pressed again. If you want to drop down a line, but not end a paragraph, press Shift+Enter to create a line break in the paragraph.

Space character

Which command displays hidden formatting marks in a document including paragraph and spacing marks?
The space character is the most common formatting marks and is represented as a single dot in place of each space in a document. These marks help with identifying two spaces instead of one and a tab created using spaces instead of a tab. The picture to the left is an example of a single space between the 'A' and 'B' characters.

Tab

Which command displays hidden formatting marks in a document including paragraph and spacing marks?
Any tab in a document will be represented by an arrow pointing to the right (tab marker), as shown in the picture. If there are multiple tabs, you'll have multiple arrows. If spaces are instead of a tab to format the text, you'll see the space characters, mentioned above.

End mark, Hard return, Paragraph, Soft return, Word processor terms

Which command displays formatting marks in a document including paragraph and spacing marks?

With Microsoft programs that support formatting marks press the Ctrl + * ( Ctrl + Shift + 8 ) shortcut key to enable and disable formatting marks. The formatting marks feature can also be enabled or disabled by clicking the paragraph symbol in the toolbar, as shown in the picture.

Can you display hidden formatting symbols and paragraph marks?

To show or hide paragraph marks and other nonprinting symbols in Word using a keyboard shortcut, press Ctrl + Shift + 8 (the asterisk key at the top of the keyboard). When you display formatting symbols, Word will also display manual page breaks and section breaks in your document.

What is the command to display formatting marks?

Show or Hide the Formatting Marks.
To show the formatting marks: Press Control+Shift+*. Press those three keys again to hide the formatting marks..
Alternatively, click the paragraph symbol in the Paragraphs section of the Home tab:.

What are the hidden formatting symbols in Word?

Show or Hide Formatting Symbols.
Click Home tab..
Click Show/Hide ¶ button. The hidden formatting symbols are now shown. These symbols represent spaces, new paragraphs, page breaks, and other bits of text and page formatting..
Click Show/Hide ¶ button again..