Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Word 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Word, click here: Displaying Nonprinting Characters.

Displaying Nonprinting Characters

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated December 24, 2020)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


1

There are several different characters, such as a space and tab, which Word does not normally display on the screen. In addition, there are several special characters that Word uses for housekeeping purposes. For instance, Word uses special characters to indicate the end of a line or the end of a paragraph. You can display these special characters, which Word refers to as nonprinting characters, by using some of the choices in the Options dialog box. To do this, follow these steps:

  1. Choose Options from the Tools menu. Word displays the Options dialog box.
  2. Make sure the View tab is selected. (See Figure 1.)
  3. Figure 1. The View tab of the Options dialog box.

  4. In the Nonprinting Characters area (Word 97) or Formatting Marks area (Word 2000, Word 2002, and Word 2003), select the characters you want Word to display.
  5. Click on OK.

Why would you want to display these characters? Quite simply because it is much easier to understand spacing when the characters are displayed. You can quickly tell, for instance, when you have inserted two spaces between words or added an extra carriage return. This allows you to more accurately control the look of your document and what it contains.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1048) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Displaying Nonprinting Characters.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

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What is 7 - 4?

2015-10-31 22:31:27

Andy

I find it much easier to use the show/hide icon that I show in my toolbar. If you edit documents a lot it is worth the time to put this icon in your toolbar that is always on display.


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