Suddenly my space bar makes dots instead of spaces,

[dubious]

Suddenly all spaces in all of my documents, including all old lWord files
when I try to access them thave been replaced by dots. I can't type a new
document with any space in it. And every time I try to start a new line I
get a paragraph edit symbol.

What have I screwed up and how do I fix it?

 

[Jay Freedman]

Suddenly all spaces in all of my documents, including all old lWord files
when I try to access them thave been replaced by dots. I can't type a new
document with any space in it. And every time I try to start a new line I
get a paragraph edit symbol.

What have I screwed up and how do I fix it?

Click the ¶ button on the toolbar or ribbon (depending on which
version of Word you have) to turn it off.

See http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/InsertSpecChars.htm for
details.

 

[Peter T. Daniels]

(You probably typed Ctrl-Shift-8 accidentally. But now that you know
how to do it, you'll find it quite useful to be able to identify where
your paragraph breaks are -- especially if you find yourself with
extra blank pages at the end, where there are accidental extra spaces
between words, etc.)

 

[DeanH]

I think the web article that was meant to be attached is the one below:
http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/NonPrintChars.htm

DeanH

 

[Jay Freedman]

Thanks for picking that up. something...mumble...characters...

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Yes, thanks, Dean. Even I didn't notice that the article was the wrong
one--just that I didn't need to bother answering because someone had already
provided the link (I thought).

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org