Conditional Hyphen
Conditional Hyphen
Formatting Marks Special marks that are hidden by default that affect how text is displayed in a document. For example, with formatting marks enabled soft and hard returns are visible (shown right). In this example, the soft returns look like arrows pointing to the left and the hard returns is a paragraph mark, which looks like a backwards 'P'. Formatting marks are often used to troubleshoot a document's layout, appearance, and any printing problems and can be enabled or disabled depending on your preference.
Enabling or disabling formatting marks
Tip
With Microsoft programs that support formatting marks press the Ctrl+* (Ctrl+Shift+8) shortcut key to enable and disable formatting marks.
The formatting marks feature can also be enabled or disabled by clicking the paragraph symbol in the toolbar, as shown in the picture. If the formatting marks button is not visible in your toolbar, you may be able to change this setting. Check the View drop-down menu (Microsoft Word 2003 and earlier) or the Home tab (Microsoft Word 2007 and later) for an option to display the formatting marks button.
Types of formatting marks
Below, is a list of the different formatting marks you'll see when enabled with a brief description.
Conditional hyphen
Conditional hyphen Any hyphen that has not been manually entered is shown as a conditional hyphen mark, which is a dash with a small line extending down on the right side.
Field code
Field code A field code is a command or code that instructs Microsoft Word to insert special items, such as the current date, current page number, or custom graphics. For example, to display the updated current date in a document, use the {date} field code.
To create a new field code, press Ctrl+F9, and to toggle the display of field codes, press Alt+F9.
Line breaks
Line break A line break is a break in the current line of text that doesn't create a new paragraph and is often done using the shortcut Shift+Enter. As seen in the image to the left, the line break resembles a symbol of an arrow pointing down and to the left. The same symbol is found on the Enter key on many computer keyboards.
Pagination breaks
A page break that is inserted manually into the document will be shown when formatting marks are enabled. Below, is a picture and an example of a page break mark. There is also a column and section break. To delete pagination breaks, move your cursor in front of
the page break mark and press the Delete key.
Paragraph marks
Paragraph Mark The paragraph mark or pilcrow follows any new paragraph in a document. By default, when pressing the Enter key, Microsoft Word and most other programs create a new paragraph. The paragraph will continue until Enter is pressed again. If you want to drop down a line, but not end a paragraph, press Shift+Enter to create a line break in the paragraph.
Space character
Space character The space character is the most common formatting marks and is represented as a single dot in place of each space in a document. These marks help with identifying two spaces instead of one and a tab created using spaces instead of a tab. The picture to the left is an example of a single space between the 'A' and 'B' characters.
Tab
Tab Any tab in a document will be represented by an arrow pointing to the right, as shown in the picture. If there are multiple tabs, you'll have multiple arrows. If spaces are instead of a tab to format the text, you'll see the space characters, mentioned above.
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