Mailing label lines are gone?

[susanb8918]

I use the 30-to-a-page label format (Avery) through Mail Merge, for from a
few labels to full page, different labels. Normally a grid appears on screen
for placement of the labels, but it does not print. Two weeks ago these
steps no longer brought up the grid. There have been peculiar looking little
squares. I'm sure they stand for something important in MSWord-ese. And
now, in the upper left corner is what appears to be a backward proofreading
sign for "paragraph" with the P loop solid black. I created a 30-to-a-page
grid Word document to substitute for the LABELS in Mail Merge, but lines show
and I usually forget to make the lines NOT show...what a nuisance. Any ideas
as to how I could fix the label feature in Mail Merge would be greatly
appreciated. I've noticed that a couple of other places I use grids (not
related to labels), they don't seem to be behaving normally. Has something
been corrupted? If yes, how can that be fixed?

 

[Peter Jamieson]

a backward proofreading

sign for "paragraph" with the P loop solid black.

1. Have a look for the same sign (called a Pilcrow) in your Standard Toolbar
(Word 2003 and earlier) and click it. That button makes several formatting
characters such as spaces and paragraph marks invisible or visible. One of
those characters is an "end of cell" marker which is probably the "peculiar
looking little squares" you mention.

2. You can display/hide the table gridlines (which is the grid you would
normally see on a label layout) using Table|Show Gridlines or Table|Hide
Gridlines.

Alternatively you can hide/display these things using the various checkboxes
in Word Tools|Options|View.

If you are using Word 2007, the PIlcrow button is on the Home tab, and when
you are working inside a table, you should find the show/hide gridlines
button on the Layout tab.

If you have actually given your table black lines so you can see what you
are doing, you'll need to remove them again as they weill print, as you have
discovered. Try selecting the table and using FOrmat|Borders and shading
(Word 2003 and earlier) or the Design tab in Word 2007.

 

[susanb8918]

Thanks, Peter J. I will certainly try your suggestions. I work in a high
school and seem to be the only person who uses that labels feature in mail
merge so, though people were concerned for my plight, there weren't any
answers.