Show Non-Printing Characters in Word - Instructions and Video (2024)

Show Non-Printing Characters in Word: Video Lesson

This video lesson, titled “Non-Printing Characters,” shows you how to show non-printing characters in Word. This video lesson is from our complete Word tutorial, titled “Mastering Word Made Easy v.2019 and 365.”

Show Non-Printing Characters in Word: Overview

You can easily show non-printing characters in Word documents. In Word, the “Spacebar,” “Tab,” and “Enter” keys all create characters within your document. In this regard, they act like most other keyboard characters keys do. However, unlike most other characters, you cannot normally see these characters. This means that they can sometimes cause problems if they are accidentally selected. For example, accidentally selecting a “Tab” character can cause a problem when copying and pasting text from one location to another in a document.

Sometimes, you may want to show non-printing characters in your Word documents. To show non-printing characters in Word, click the “Home” tab in the Ribbon. Then click the “Show/Hide Non-Printing Characters” button in the “Paragraph” button group. The face of the button looks like the paragraph mark (“¶”).

After you click this button, it then appears highlighted to let you know that the function is turned on. To then hide non-printing characters in Word, click the same “Show/Hide Non-Printing Characters” button again. Doing this then turns the display of the non-printing characters back off.

Show Non-Printing Characters in Word – Instructions: A picture of a document after showing the non-printing characters in Microsoft Word.

Show Non-Printing Characters in Word: Instructions

1. To show non-printing characters in Word documents, click the “Home” tab in the Ribbon.
2. Then click the “Show/Hide Non-Printing Characters” button within the “Paragraph” button group.
3. To hide the display of the non-printing characters in your document, click the “Show/Hide Non-Printing Characters” button again.

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