Uber urgent completely noobile MS word solution required :(

benneh · 10 Jul 2007 at 01:06

My dearest mother is completing an on-line exam type affair for a language course (she's currently in Spain) and has called me in a state of panic because her word documents seem to have been taken over by the little icon shown below:

Apparently she "might" have pressed the CTRL key and "something else"... So I'm hoping it's just a case of reversing the process?.

Have fun, help a noob to help his mother

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Inquisitor · 10 Jul 2007 at 01:10

That's just the pilcrow sign; it shows you where your line breaks are. They aren't printed or even saved with the document, so no need to worry.

You can turn them off using this button, though:

Dunks · 10 Jul 2007 at 01:10

Don't have MS Word installed so cant be any more specific, but on the toolbar at the top, there should be an icon similar to that shown on the toolbar, just click it off.

benneh · 10 Jul 2007 at 01:13

Inquisitor said:
That's just the pilcrow sign; it shows you where your line breaks are. They aren't printed or even saved with the document, so no need to worry.

I did explain this to her, but she's half-way to freaking out. It's actually impossible to explain anything computer related to her. The print screen effort took 25 mins

. Basically she wants rid of the 'pilcrow' sign. Google is my friend, I now have a name.. Pilcrow. TYTY

Bobster · 10 Jul 2007 at 01:14

This is what you need to click on

G-MAN2004 · 10 Jul 2007 at 01:20

Why is there a full stop (I think) after each word?

Inquisitor · 10 Jul 2007 at 01:21

benneh said:
I did explain this to her, but she's half-way to freaking out. It's actually impossible to explain anything computer related to her. The print screen effort took 25 mins . Basically she wants rid of the 'pilcrow' sign. Google is my friend, I now have a name.. Pilcrow. TYTY

Don't worry, I know just what it's like

G-MAN2004 said:
Why is there a full stop (I think) after each word?

That's to indicate where spaces are. It's turned on an off along with the pilcrows.

bledd · 10 Jul 2007 at 01:38

i always leave them on, my mum told me to back in works 3.0 days!

don't have any office apps installed now, but when i need them, pilcrow /on

benneh · 10 Jul 2007 at 01:43

Excellent and excellent, and thank-you all most kindly. You wouldn't believe the ear ache

. It took 5 mins for her to press Ctrl+Shift+8.. Good old mums

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Sinny · 10 Jul 2007 at 01:50

Its to help with Formatting i think, i had it in a MOS exam, pretty useless thing but theirs someone out their who uses it

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Inquisitor · 10 Jul 2007 at 02:33

Sinny said:
Its to help with Formatting i think, i had it in a MOS exam, pretty useless thing but theirs someone out their who uses it .

It's not useless: it allows you to see where all the white space is.

feriso · 10 Jul 2007 at 07:04

Exactly - I find it hard to format a document properly with out it. You think that is 'bad' then you should try typing and formatting a whole document in Wordperfect 5.1 (for DOS) where nearly all you see is codes