Word settings

[Birchy]

I have a child-induced MS Word problem where all of my documents are plastered with strange characters, even when opening a new document. New documents have a tiny box appearing in the top left hand corner, and all previously saved docs are covered in paragraph-type symbols. What do I do to get rid of these and restore Word to original format?

[LeMarchand]

You may have it set to show non-printing characters (I actually prefer this, as it helps with formatting etc). Go to Tools>Options, and click on the View tab. If you uncheck anything in Formatting Marks it should sort out your problem.

[smorodina]

It sounds like you're viewing the formatting symbols.Try this: go to the 'tools' menu, select 'options' and on the view tab untick all the 'formatting marks'.

[smorodina]

Sorry, posted together!

[Hippy]

If when you open a brand new "blank" document it is not really blank but has some rubbish on then you will have to make a new template. Do this by deleting everything on the page and then File | Save As and select Word Template from the drop down box of File Type. The computer should seek out where the template is stored for you and you will see one called "normal.dot". Save your newly created blank template with this name, and say yes you want to overwrite the old version.

 

You may find that you will get asked all this again when you exit Word, as it has detected that the "normal.dot" template has changed. Just say you want to exit witout saving changes this time and everything should be fine next time you open Word.

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