LucarInfo Blog

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Getting strange ¶ characters in MS Word: how to remove them

Those strange ¶ symbols are called pilcrow signs or paragraph signs and they show the end of paragraphs. They’re useful to see when you’re formatting and editing e-books and don’t print at all, but could be distracting.

Fortunately, there’s an easy way to remove them.

  • Click the top menu item Tools->Options
  • Click View
  • Look for ‘Formatting Marks’, and uncheck the option ‘All’
  • Click OK

Or for newer versions…

  • Click the top menu item ‘Review’
  • Look for ‘Show Markup’ and click
  • Look for ‘Formatting’ and uncheck

OR

  • Click View
  • Move down to Toolbars and choose Standard, for standard toolbar
  • You should see a Pilcrow icon on the toolbar that you can click to either show or hide

Finally, Windows 10 makes it much easier to find. Just click the ‘Home’ tab, and you should see the Pilcrow icon somewhere near the top middle. You can click it to turn it off and click it again to turn it on.

Hope this helps 🙂

Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. It didnt work. I tried uncheking formatting but whenever i am restarting word it comes again. i didnt evenn go when i uncheked formatting. i also tried uninstalling and restalling office.
    please guide. it distracts me from working

  3. Hiii…
    I am getting that strange symbol in my microsoft word 13 and I still have it. I have tried those steps that you have suggested. But it didnt work for me 🙁 . Could someone help me?

  8. Office 2013 – Home tab there is ¶ character before style box, if you click that accidental, this weird characters appear. Unchecked ¶ to remove this mark.

  9. For word 2007,
    Go to Home –> Under paragraph tab –> Uncheck the symbol which is appearing

    In my case this symbol “¶ ” was appearing.

  15. Hi!
    Do you know those little white rectangles that you have to fill in when doing a grammar exercise online? I need to know how to remove them using Find/Replace but I don’t know how they are named. Can you help me?
    Thanks!!!

  19. You save my life buddy, i even uninstall Ms office and reinstall it again because the symbols i was getting, no way to get rid of them, you save my life, thanks a lot.

  20. Thanks for this I must have keyed in a shortcut by accident and was tearing my hair out trying to remove them.

  21. Thanks

    the below worked like a Bomb, how did it get there in the first place?

    Click the top menu item Tools->Options
    Click View
    Look for ‘Formatting Marks’, and uncheck the option ‘All’
    Click OK

    • Is it under the Home tab? You might see the pilcrow ¶ sign close to the middle top. Clicking it turns it on and off. Hope this helps 🙂

      • Even i faced same issue…In Home Tab –> middle top (you can see pilcrow symbol select/deselect it’ll disappear…Good it helps for me….

        Thanks lucarinf

  30. another easy way to removes these annoying icons is to open the document (microsoft 2010 version) select home page, have a look across the top of the page, where you see all the different actions you can perform, like font size, type, centre,align text etc and you will see the actual icon, simply check it and boosh, it’s gone. simples.

  32. Perfect fix. How did the symbol get there in the first place? I didn’t change any settings in MS Word 2003 and when I opened an old saved file today there it was.

    It was very annoying but I am grateful for this blog which took care of the issue.

  33. Thanks for the help here, every word document I had ever created had a pilcrow symbol in it… there gone now thanks to you folks!!

    • Could Alt+v+s help to toggle the paragraph marks? Someone else suggested this keyboard shortcut for Word 2003. Hope it helps.

  39. MS Word 2013 navigate to home tab and find q symbol and click on it then it will be remove.

  41. None of these worked, and I want to smash my computer.

    How many sheer hours, days, weeks, months do we spend trying to get these stupid machines to just WORK –

    WHY does WORD assume I want these little markings? Who uses them, and why?

    WHY WHY WHY WHY must anyone who tries to use a computer be required not to edit their photos, not to type a document, not to use various apps, but instead to waste their lives TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG AND JUST FIX IT.

    Instead of googling “Funny marks on word,” coming here, going down the list and the MARKS ARE STILL THERE, and finally you say to yourself, “Ok, the document has to be written and printed, so i guess I HAVE to have these marks.”

    20 minutes of your life wasted – AGAIN. Beautiful day outside? No, you will waste your life trying to get the computer to do what typewriters did just fine – “I need to type a document, I scroll a piece of paper into the typewriter, I type what I need, pull out the paper and walk away, onto other things.”

    Instead, it’s open WORD and – SURPRISE! Little marks on your paper that won’t go away and YOU DIDN’T WANT THEM THERE TO BEGIN WITH.

    Same thing with looking up things on Youtube. “You will watch this stupid commercial for something you haven’t the slightest interest in buying.”

    SIGH
    SIGH
    SIGH
    SIGH
    SIGH

    8:30 AM and I’m already angry….

    SIGH

    • i understand perfectly. the Pilcrow is our friend but can also be our worse enemy. it can leap from every directions. Hide, scurry, appear and disappear without a warning. What to do under those auspicious situations?
      I may or may not have an answer for you. but try we may, and perhaps, God willing we’ll see the last of Pilcrow. that damning gnome from the depth of the deepest hard drive.
      it is true, sometimes we must simply accept reality for what it is, cruel, unexpected, and incomprehensible. we live in a world where it is impossible to get away from the ordinary and extraordinary frustrations of ordinary experiences.
      MS Word is meant to test our God given patience. the kind of virtue that most of us possess but few can master. where is this trial and tribulation going to take us is anyone’s guess, we need only to see what it represents: a supernatural plan that stares us in the eyes everyday till the end of days.
      the long, bony, cold fingers are on our pulse following the rhythm of our insoluble emotions. wisdom, passion, action, have little use under these obsessive circumstances. only the Almighty has the final answer. the rest of must must live inconsolably our entire existence with the perennial Pilcrow.

  42. Computer frustrations, we’ve all been there 😉 But if you print your word document, those funny marks won’t get printed, or at least they’re not supposed to. Hope this works.

  43. Thank you very much – those pilcow things were only on my document for a minute and driving me crazy!

  48. I am not technologically savvy, but your instructions helped me fix, in my opinion, the problem of what I call the little backwards P. Thank you so much!!!!

  50. Thank you so much. I was stuck badly with a report on the word doc. This was very helpful 🙂

  54. Hi! I’m suddenly getting an UNFILLED in pilcrow in my word 7 document and I cannot remove it. Have never seen it before and if affects my ability to format the doc. It has resisted every attempt of mine to remove them. They are cropping up in place of the usual filled in pilcrow. Can you help? I’ve searched online but see nothing about this symbol. Thanks!

  55. THANK YOU!!! I have been agonizing over this…fixed. No more weird symbols!BAM

  56. THANK YOU!

    Every once in a while I hit something accidentally and these show up. I know what they’re for, but I can never remember how to get rid of them. And “Help” never helps because I don’t know what to call the pilcrow icons. LOL!

    Thanks for understanding my odd question!

  60. I have Windows 10 and tried this but it didn’t work. I used the route Review–> Show Markup–>Formatting
    Any other suggestions?

    • Try HOME instead. Near the top middle, you should see the PILCROW symbol. Clicking it will turn it ON or OFF. Hope this helps.

  62. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

    One click did it. ….. I have no idea how it got started, but I sure am glad to be rid of all those extra marks.

  65. Your suggestion is completely wrong.
    All you need is the keyboard shortcut for showing and hiding the symbols: Ctrl + Shift + 8

  72. Thank you so much. Your how-to-solve-the-issue info is clear and precise. It solved my problem. I was definitely distracted with these symbols everywhere my document. Learnt something new today. Thanks to you :-).

  74. Hahaha it drived me crazy..at first i thought i had a virus ..
    i had to submit my personal statement and today was the deadline and these symbols were driving me nuts. Luckily I didnt try re formatting my hard disk thinking it was a virus that took over my word doc .

  84. what is the symbol that looks like the Enter symbol sort of like a backward “L” with an arrow on the horizontal leg?

  86. I went through all of these and it was the last answer. It worked a charm! Thank you! It was making me crazy!

  87. to remove first press ctrl+p then go into option and unmark formating option

  88. I am not sure how I enabled this … but popped up all of a sudden … and Thanks to your Blog post Saved my Nerve … was going crazy. Thanks again! 🙂

  91. A very big thank you. Well explained & not drawn out. I was freaking out!! Happy again!!

  94. ctrl+shift+8 will fix this.

    I couldn’t get any of these suggestions to work but found that this shortcut turns the characters on and off. It’s usually done by mistake when using an asterisk.

  97. I was losing my mind until I found you, please don’t leave me, you are the only one good to me, a God send, a miracle, a ……..I’m sorry, I was really losing my freaking mind. In all seriousness…..Thank you so much.

  98. Thanks so much! This helped better than any other site! Great job! I like all of the different ways to do this! 🙂

  102. I have been trying to find the fix for this for like an hour, and i found it thanks for the helpful info <3

  106. Thank you so much, this information is so precise. It solved my encounter with the pilcrow icon.

  112. Thank You so much. That pilcrow icon drove me nuts, tried everything from uninstalling word, deleting registry keys, etc.
    Nothing worked but your advice. Thank You, Thank You.

  114. Thank you, more than I can say. Instructions was very detailed and easy to follow.
    You Rock!

  117. Thanks a lot to you. I was very nervous seeing this strange symbol all over my document. You saved me. Thanks a lot:)

  118. Omg I thought I would never manage to correct this and submit my 22 page 4356 word lab report with this looking. THANKS AA LOOT!

  126. You can also remove the symbol from the Home section.Just before the styles , you have the symbol displayed. Click on the symbol , and it will disappear from the document.
    Hope this was helpful.

  129. Hello and thanks for the information…

    I tried and it worked…

    However, i suddenly realized all my documents now have the pilcrow mark on them…

    Do i have to do it one by one or is there a way to remove from all the documents?

    Thanks.

  130. Thank you… It works…. I thought it was a virus that cause my word document a lot of garbage symbol.. It helps a lot…. Thanks to your blog….God bless…

  132. Thanks a lot mate!
    Fixed!
    Greatly appreciated!
    Keep safe where ever you are.
    Cheers,
    David

  133. hello.ma word is 2007. I have try evrything you said.,didn’t work.Your help plzzz.stil so annot.i cn’t type proper;y

  135. Thank you it can help. My temper was going to high and then searching google and found your post about my problem. ?