I see something unusual in my document.

You may be seeing an editing mark, a proofing mark, a smart tag, a picture placeholder, or another type of document indicator. Some marks, such as formatting marks and some parts of a table, can be displayed or hidden by clicking Show/Hide   on the Standard toolbar. Some marks are also only visible in certain views, such as outline view or normal view.

Below is a list of items that might appear in your document.

Formatting marks

Tab character

An arrow

Space

A dot that appears between words

Text-wrapping break

A symbol that indicates that text is wrapping below an object, such as a picture:

Page break

Indicated with a dotted line in normal view

Section break

Indicated with two dotted lines when your document contains different types of section-level formatting.

  Section formatted as a single column

  Section formatted as two columns

Field code brace

Some information ù such as a date that is automatically updated, or index entries ù is inserted as a field. If field codes are being displayed, you will see curved braces: {DOCPROPERTY "Manager" \* Upper}.

Index entries are marked with field braces and hidden text:

Paragraph mark

Appears at the end of a paragraph: . The paragraph mark contains paragraph formatting information.

Manual line break

Appears at the end of a line when you press SHIFT+ENTER:

Underline

If text on your screen is underlined, but you didn't apply underline formatting to it, it could appear as underlined for any of the following reasons.

Red or green wavy underline

When you automatically check spelling and grammar, Microsoft Word uses wavy red underlines to indicate possible spelling errors and wavy green underlines to indicate possible grammatical errors.

Red wavy underline in an e-mail header

Word automatically checks the names in the e-mail header against names in the Address Book. If multiple names are found that match the name you type, a red wavy line appears under the name. You can choose a replacement for each unrecognized name.

Blue or other color underline

When you automatically check the consistency of your formatting, Word uses wavy blue underlines to indicate possible instances of inconsistent formatting.

Purple or other color underline

Followed hyperlinks appear as purple and underlined by default.

Red or other color single or double underline (vertical bars may also appear in the left or right margin)

By default, newly inserted text is marked as underlined when the Track Changes feature is used. Vertical bars ù called changed lines ù may also appear in the left or right border of text that contains tracked changes.

Purple dotted underline

Smart tags appear with purple dotted underlines beneath their text. You can use smart tags to perform actions in Word that you'd normally open other programs to do.

Revision marks or tracked changes

  Balloons show insertions or deletions, formatting changes, and comments.

To facilitate online review, Word allows you to easily make and view tracked changes and comments in a document. In order to preserve the layout of your document, Word shows some markup elements in the text of the document while others are displayed in balloons that appear in the margin.

Tables

Some parts of a table can only be seen if you display all formatting marks by clicking Show/Hide   on the Standard toolbar.

A table cell

The smallest unit of a table:

A table column

A vertical cross-section of cells:

A table row

A horizontal cross-section of cells:

Table move handle

Appears at the top corner of a table, so you can move it easily:

Smart tags and other buttons within text

Smart Tag Actions button and indicator

Smart tags perform actions in Word that you'd normally open other programs to do. The purple dotted lines beneath text in your document indicate the smart tags, and you click the Smart Tag Actions button to perform tasks.

  Smart Tag Actions button

  Smart tag indicator

AutoCorrect Options button

The AutoCorrect Options button first appears as a small, blue box when you rest the mouse pointer near text that was automatically corrected, and changes to a button icon when you point to it. If you find on occasion that you don't want text to be corrected, you can undo a correction or turn AutoCorrect options on or off by clicking the button and making a selection.

Paste Options button

The Paste Options button appears just below your pasted selection after you paste text. When you click the button, a list appears that lets you determine how the information is pasted into your document. The available options depend on the type of content you are pasting, the program you are pasting from, and the format of the text in the area you are pasting to.

Outline view levels

You may see squares or plus signs when you are in outline view.

Text boxes and graphics

Link text box "pitcher" indicator

This symbol appears when you are linking two text boxes: . Press ESC if you do not plan to link text to another text box and want to dismiss the pitcher pointer.

Empty rectangle

An empty rectangle could be a text box, a text frame, a picture placeholder, or a drawing canvas.

Web pages

Sound control

Indicates a background sound in a Web page:

Video Control

Indicates a video or movie: