Showing Formatting Marks

If you need to precisely align text, you may want to display Word’s special formatting symbols. These symbols show you the exact position of spaces, tabs, and the ends of paragraphs.

To show (or hide) formatting marks, follow these steps:

1. Click the Office Button. A pull-down menu appears and then choose Word Options. The Word Options dialog box appears.
   
   
2. Click Display. The Word Options dialog box displays check boxes to define which types of characters you want to make visible in your document.
   
   
3. Mark (click) the check boxes of the formatting symbols you want to display, such as Spaces or Tab Characters, as shown in Figure below. Word displays your document with the formatting marks you want to display.
   
   
   
   

   The Display category in the Word Options dialog box lets you choose which formatting symbols to display in your document.

4. Click OK.
   
   For a faster way to turn on/off formatting marks, click the Home tab and then click the Show/Hide Paragraph Marks icon in the Paragraph group. This turns on all formatting marks, unlike Steps 1-4, which allow you to selectively choose which formatting marks to display, such as Spaces or Return characters.