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Why do my index markers keep showing up?

Anonymous
2025-05-08T11:00:12+00:00

After having worked out a method to extract the index markers with macros here, something badly wrong seems to go on with my Word software. The markers always show up, even when the hidden paragraph and text formatting function is turned off. That is, the index markers continue to show up as textual content. Here the two screenshots with the show paragraphs option on and off.

May I have inadvertently changed some visualization setting? I fear that something has been corrupted in my MS Word application!

Shutting down and restarting the system doesn't change this.

The issue isn't in the .docx file because, if I visualize it on my laptop, it is fine.

Any idea what the cause of this misbehavior could be?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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Jay Freedman 207.7K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
2025-05-08T11:50:28+00:00

Turn off the button with a paragraph mark and then go to File > Options > Display. If the "Hidden text" box is checked, click it to uncheck it.

The button on the ribbon controls only the "Show all formatting marks" option. If any of the other options in that group are turned on individually, they remain turned on when the the button is turned off.

You can ignore Dean's response. XE fields are automatically marked as Hidden. When they're made visible by displaying hidden text, they always display the field code regardless of the setting that Dean indicated, because they don't produce any visible field value.

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  1. Jay Freedman 207.7K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2025-05-08T15:18:46+00:00

    Yes, indeed, this turns it off. Good to know that it was nothing corrupted. Thank you. I only wonder how the hidden text box got checked in the first place?

    Mea culpa. If you ran the macro from my second post yesterday in your other thread, it turned on the display of hidden text with the statement

    ActiveWindow.View.ShowHiddenText = True

    but I forgot to include the statement at the end of the macro to turn it off by setting the value to False.

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  2. Anonymous
    2025-05-08T12:02:29+00:00

    Yes, indeed, this turns it off. Good to know that it was nothing corrupted. Thank you. I only wonder how the hidden text box got checked in the first place?

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  3. Anonymous
    2025-05-08T11:49:09+00:00

    Try checking the following which is a user attribute; i.e. is on the machine and not the file :)

    File; Options; Advanced; Show field codes instead of their values, uncheck if it is checked.

    Image

    Hope this helps, let us know how you get on. :)

    oops, wrong setting :)

    File; Options, Display, uncheck Hidden text

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