Formatting marks
Special
marks that are hidden by default that affect how text is displayed in a document. For example, in
the picture to the to the right, with formatting marks enabled soft and
hard returns are visible. In this example, the soft returns look like arrows
pointing to the 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.
The formatting marks feature can
also be enabled or disabled by clicking
the paragraph symbol in the toolbar, as shown in the picture to the right. If this button is not visible in your toolbar, you may be able to
change this setting through the View drop-down menu or in the Home
tab, in Microsoft Word 2007 and higher.
Types of formatting marks
Below, is a list of the different types of formatting marks you'll see when formatting marks are enabled and a brief description about each of the marks.
Conditional Hyphen
Any
hyphen that has not been manually entered by
the user will be shown as a conditional hyphen mark, which is a dash with a
small line extending down on the right-hand side, as shown in the picture
to the left.
Field code
A field
code is a command or code that instructs Microsoft Word to insert special
text such as the current date or page number, graphics, and other external
data. For example, if you wanted today's date to be displayed in a document
using a field code, it would be {date}, as shown in the picture. To create
a new field code, press Ctrl + F9, and to toggle the display of field codes
press Alt + F9.
Line breaks
A
line break is a break in the current line
of text that doesn't create a new paragraph. This is often done using the
shortcut Shift+Enter. As seen in the image to the left, the line break
resembles a symbol of an arrow pointing down and to the left. This is the
same symbol found on most computer keyboards Enter key.
Pagination breaks
A page break that has been inserted manually into the document will be shown when formatting marks is enabled. Below, is an example of what a page break mark would look like. In addition to this 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 delete key.
Paragraph marks
The
paragraph mark or Pilcrow follows any new
paragraph in a document. By default when pressing Enter Microsoft Word and
most other programs will create a new paragraph, this paragraph will
continue 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
The
space character is one of 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. In the
picture to the left, is an example of a single
space between the 'A' and 'B' characters.
Tab
Any
tab in a document will be represented as an
arrow pointing to the right, as shown in the picture. If there are multiple
tabs, you'll have multiple arrows. If someone has used spaces instead of a
tab to format their text, you'll see the space characters, mentioned above.
Also see: End mark, Hard return, Paragraph, Soft return