Small dot in left margin

[vicelly]

Version: 2004
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
Processor: Power PC

When "Show Paragraphs" is enabled, a small black dot appears in the left margin of some of my paragraphs. These paragraphs have a style assigned to them, which I think accounts for the dot. But not all styled paragraphs have the dot. Also, if I change one of these paragraphs to a different style, the dot disappears, but returns when I revert to the previous style. Do any of the Word experts out there know what these dots mean? Are they important?

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

They mean something that affects page breaks is applied to that
paragraph, say if "keep with next" is part of the style, a square black
dot shows up.

See here for more info, and an explanation of how nonprinting characters
can be extremely useful:
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/NonPrintChars.htm

By the way, *all* paragraphs in Word have a style, though it may be the
default Normal style.

 

[vicelly]

Hello Daiya,

Thank you for the response, and the associated web site. Very informative and helpful. So the dot is nothing to concern myself about, I suppose, as long as the text looks good on screen.

I wonder why Microsoft thought it was important to flag a paragraph that had one of these properties (Keep with next, Keep together, etc).

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

I wonder why Microsoft thought it was important to flag a paragraph that had one of these properties (Keep with next, Keep together, etc).

Oh, very important--for instance, if your pages are breaking in the
wrong place, you need to know that these things are applied. Let's say
page 2 only shows a single paragraph, takes up 1/4 of the page, and then
breaks, but there is no page break. This could be caused because all the
text on page 3-5 have "keep together" applied, and in trying to obey
something that is impossible, Word creates this random 3/4 blank page.
So showing the dot as part of nonprinting characters lets you quickly
see, "oh wait, a lot of paragraphs in a row have this dot--maybe keep
together might be the issue." Or maybe the first para on page 3 somehow
got "page break before" applied to it.

In general, nonprinting characters are your way to analyze what goes on
behind the scenes, and those keep together/keep with next/page break
before properties are very important parts of how Word organizes behind
the scenes.

 

[vicelly]

Hello Daiya,

Yes, of course. That makes sense. Whenever I get frustrated with Word, I usually find out there is a good (?) reason for what Microsoft has done. Doesn't stop the frustration, though. Maybe a better "Help" file would help.

Thanks again, Daiya.

Regards,
Vic DiFranco

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Vic:

Well, They have heard this request just once or twice before In Office
2008, there will eventually BE a better help file

In Office 2008, the Help has the ability to update itself automatically via
the internet.

In the meantime, we encourage you to hang around here. We like to think we
contain more useless information than any help file

Cheers

Hello Daiya,

Yes, of course. That makes sense. Whenever I get frustrated with Word, I
usually find out there is a good (?) reason for what Microsoft has done.
Doesn't stop the frustration, though. Maybe a better "Help" file would help.

Thanks again, Daiya.

Regards,
Vic DiFranco

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