Hide non printing formatting marks Word

Hide Paragraph Marks (¶) and Other Nonprinting Symbols in Microsoft Word

by Avantix Learning Team | Updated April 5, 2021

Applies to: Microsoft® Word® 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019 and 365 (Windows)

You can show or hide paragraph marks (¶) or symbols and other nonprinting characters (such as tabs, spaces and soft returns) in your Microsoft Word documents using the Ribbon or a keyboard shortcut. It's generally a good idea to display paragraph marks and other formatting symbols when working on Word documents. Formatting symbols display only on screen and do not print.

Recommended article: How to Quickly Remove Hard Returns in Word Documents

A paragraph in Word is anything with a hard return after it (you have pressed Enter or Return).

The following symbols are typically displayed when you turn on formatting symbols :

Paragraph – ¶

Space (dot) – .

Tab – →

In the following sample Word document, Show/Hide ¶ is turned on:

Hide non printing formatting marks Word

Hiding paragraph marks and other nonprinting symbols using the Ribbon

To show or hide paragraph marks and other nonprinting symbols in Word using the Ribbon:

  1. Click the Home tab in the Ribbon.
  2. In the Paragraph group, click ¶ (Show/Hide ¶).

Below is the Paragraph group in the Ribbon:

Hide non printing formatting marks Word

Hiding paragraph marks and other nonprinting symbols using a keyboard shortcut

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.

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Formatting marks are special characters that are hidden by default that affect how text is displayed in a Microsoft Word document; its purpose is to reveal spaces, tabs, and paragraph breaks in your document. The formatting tab is unprintable; if any of the formatting marks are turned on in Word, it displays hidden characters such as Tab characters, Spaces, Paragraphs marks, Hidden text, Optional hyphens, Object anchors, and you can choose to show all formatting marks.

Follow the steps below to show and hide formatting marks or non-printing characters in Word:

  1. To show the formatting marks, click the File tab
  2. Click Options on the backstage view
  3. A Word Options dialog box will open
  4. Click Display on the left pane.
  5. Under the section “Always show these formatting marks on screen,” you can enable one or more formatting marks if desired by checking the checkboxes.
  6. You can also click the checkbox for Show all formatting marks to display all formatting marks.
  7. Then click OK.
  8. To hide the formatting marks follow the same procedure above and uncheck the formatting mark or marks you have enabled, then click OK.

Let us see this in detail.

How to Show or Hide Non-Printing Characters in Word

To show the formatting marks, click the File tab.

Click Options on the backstage view.

A Word Options dialog box will open

Hide non printing formatting marks Word

Click Display on the left pane.

Under the section “Always show these formatting marks on screen,” you can enable one or more formatting marks if desired by checking the checkboxes.

You can also click the checkbox for Show all formatting marks to display all formatting marks.

Then click OK.

To hide the formatting marks follow the same procedure above and uncheck the formatting mark or marks you have enabled, then click OK.

Turn on or off Formatting Marks in Word using a Hotkey

This is the quickest way to show/hide formatting marks in a Microsoft Word document. Here are the steps:

  1. Open Microsoft Word
  2. Open a blank document or a saved document
  3. Press the Ctrl+Shift+* hotkey.

This will instantly turn on Formatting Marks and all the used formatting marks will visible in the document. You will see dots for spaces, pilcrow for paragraph marks, right arrows for tabs used in the document, and other available formatting marks.

To hide or turn off formatting marks again, press the same Ctrl+Shift+* hotkey.

Show or hide Formatting Symbols using the Home tab in Microsoft Word

Hide non printing formatting marks Word

If you want to temporarily display formatting marks or formatting symbols in a Word document, then you can use the Home tab of MS Word. Here are the steps:

  1. Open MS Word
  2. Open a saved document in MS Word or a blank document
  3. Switch to the Home tab available in the Ribbon menu
  4. Click on the paragraph mark icon (or pilcrow symbol) available in the Paragraph group of the Home tab.

That will reveal all the formatting symbols present in your Word document. To hide the formatting symbols, you can use the same paragraph mark icon or symbol.

Show or hide Formatting Marks in Word Online

Hide non printing formatting marks Word

If you want to show or hide formatting marks in Word Online, then it can be done in three different ways. For this, first, open Word Online and then open a document. After that, use any of the following ways to show/hide formatting marks or symbols:

  1. Click on the More Options icon (three vertical dots) available in the top right corner and use the Show/Hide option
  2. Right-click on the Word document and click on the Show/Hide option
  3. Type formatting marks in the Search box of Word Online and select the Show/Hide option in the search result.

Hope this helps.

How do you reveal formatting codes in Word?

If you want to reveal formatting codes or formatting marks in the Microsoft Word desktop application and Word Online, then you can use the Home tab, hotkey, right-click menu, Word Options, and other ways. All these ways to show/hide formatting marks in a Microsoft Word document are covered in this post with step-by-step instructions.

Which button do you press to show non-printing characters formatting marks and breaks?

You can open the Paragraph marks a formatting mark by using combination keys Ctrl + Shift + 8, and you will see the Paragraph mark symbol displayed on your screen. The formatting mark follows any new paragraph in a document.

Which hidden formatting symbol represents a space?

Each formatting mark has a purpose to your Word document. The hidden formatting symbol that represents a space is a small black dot. The dot will appear in the document when there is a space.

We hope this tutorial helps you understand how to show and hide formatting marks in Word; if you have questions about the tutorial, let us know in the comments.

Can you hide formatting marks?

To turn formatting marks on or off, do the following: In the message window, on the Format Text tab, in the Paragraph group, click the button that looks like a paragraph mark. (When you point your mouse at the button, the tooltip says Show/Hide ¶). Keyboard shortcut CTRL+SHIFT+*.

What is the shortcut of view hiding non printing characters?

To show or hide nonprinting characters, click the Nonprinting characters icon at the Home tab on the top toolbar. Alternatively, you can use the Ctrl+Shift+Num8 key combination.