Knowledge Center

The Mysterious Show/Hide Tool Demystified

How many times have you looked at this tool on the toolbar and wondered what it was?

This symbol is the show/hide tool and it can show you what’s happening in your document behind the scenes.  When you hit the enter/return key, or click the spacebar, or set a tab into a document it’s not visible to you in the document.  It can be somewhat difficult to tell how your text is separated, unless you use the show/hide feature.

If the tool is not visible currently on you standard toolbar you can view it by clicking on the tiny arrow all the way to the right of your toolbar. Don't blink...you'll miss this one it's so small!

Once the tool is visible go ahead and click it and you’ll see some changes on your screen before your eyes. 

Note: Don’t be overwhelmed!

At first it’s going to be a little confusing.  All of these stray marks that are unfamiliar to you are now suddenly cluttering your screen.  But what seems like clutter is a very useful source of information.  Let’s look at the three most common symbols a little more closely.

 

This paragraph mark represents a hard return, which is the enter/return key on your keyboard.  It starts a new line of text when you click it.

The little dots represent spaces.  Each one is a space, pretty simple so far right.

 

And last but not least, this is the tab marker.

Remember, at any time you can turn the show/hide feature off simply by clicking on it.

 

Now, when you’re wondering if you have an “extra space” between two words, or if you’re wondering if space was created by tabs or extra spaces you can quickly click the show/hide tool and immediately “see” what you have on the page, no more guesswork…mystery solved!

 

Kimberly Deprey
Copyright 2008