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Microsoft Word: Weird Arrows??

Jodie 1 Reputation point
2022-04-18T09:26:52.993+00:00

Hi everyone,

Today I was editing a document on Microsoft Word and called my dad for help because of a typesetting problem (the term is known as 'justification') and some strange arrows on my document that occurred when I entered a line.

As seen below, this is what the arrow looks like, instead of the usual black sign that looks like a bold letter "P" placed backward.
193800-weird-arrow-thingmabob.png

My dad also said that because the lines of the document weren't entered properly (I pasted it directly from Google Documents, where I use the command [shift + enter] to make a new line), the arrows were twisting up the typesetting and that was what was affecting the document.

Although I do take my dad's word, I still have doubts about this, and therefore resorted to consulting the society.

Has anyone else had this problem before? And more importantly still, does it really affect the typesetting?

Thanks,
Jodie

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For business | Windows

3 answers

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  1. Ute Simon 26 Reputation points MVP
    2022-04-18T09:55:38.56+00:00

    To start a new paragraph, you press Enter, which results in the "backward P", if you turn on the non-printing characters. If you want to start only a new line, and press Shift+Enter, the arrow is shown. Normally you do not need to press this at the end of a line, Google Docs as well as Microsoft Word have an automatic line break. If the line does not break where you want or expect it to, you should correct your text margins.

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  2. Andreas Baumgarten 123.5K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2022-04-18T09:45:37.853+00:00

    Hi @Jodie ,

    it might be helpful to paste the text "as plain text" in Word. This way you get rid of any "formatting special characters" of the source text.

    This is maybe helpful: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/control-the-formatting-when-you-paste-text-20156a41-520e-48a6-8680-fb9ce15bf3d6

    ----------

    (If the reply was helpful please don't forget to upvote and/or accept as answer, thank you)

    Regards
    Andreas Baumgarten

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  3. Stefan Blom 3,116 Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2022-04-19T07:44:51.817+00:00

    The arrow is a manual line break. For more on nonprinting marks in Word, see http://wordfaqs.ssbarnhill.com/NonprintChars.htm.

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