problem with microsoft word

hi all

im wanting to type a letter on microsoft word but for some reason when i press the space bar all i get instead of a gap is ......... full stops! can someone help me fix this problem?

thanks

 

p.s im on windows XP

 

When you press the spacebar and get fullstops, are they "on the line" or above the "line?" If they are above the line, perhaps formatting characters are being displayed. Usually (but we'll deal with the exception only if we need to) they can be turned off by clicking on the back-to-front capital P on your toolbar.

 

yes thats right it has a capital P (backwards) on the page...the full stops are at the base of the line...like that

 

Is this problem occurring in NotePad, WordPad or any other Office program that you have?

 

i tried it on publisher and the space bar worked fine...and it works fine when im on internet pages..as you can see.

I looked in the 'view' tab on publisher and the symbol (capital P but backwards) is under special characters.....i cant locate it on Micro word. The full stops are now halfway up instead of on the bottom.

 

Hang on, let me wrap my brain around that again... are you saying that you can see back-to-front Ps mixed in with your text? If so, look for a matching symbol on the toolbars and click it and (hopefully) the ones amongst your text will disappear.

And when I say on the line, I mean are all the dots in line with fullstops or slightly higher?

 

the full stops are slightly higher..and i've looked on the toolbar for the same symbol and i cant locate it..its not even under the 'view' tab like it is on publisher

 

did it...played about with the tool bar..thanks so much

 

Crossed posts - lol! Sounds like formatting marks, also known as non-printing characters are being shown. If you can't find a back-to-front P on your toolbars, go to Tools - Options and then the View tab. Under Formatting Marks, make sure everything is unticked. Click Okay and see what happens.

Even if they are being shown, they don't print unless you choose to have them print, but that's another thing to learn!

Also, check to see if the normal toolbars are turned on. Go to View - Toolbars and then look to see that Formatting and Standard are ticked. If they aren't, just highlight them and click. These have the most used and most useful tools for Word.

 

Crossed posts again! lol. Glad it's sorted out.