How to Turn Off Paragraph Symbols in Microsoft Word

Disable the paragraph symbol to give your docs a polished look

Last Updated: October 11, 2024

Microsoft Word has a button for turning paragraph symbols on and off, which looks like this ¶. This button is called the formatting marks button. In some situations, it can be helpful to have the paragraph symbols turned on (like if you need to delete a page break, but you can’t tell exactly where the markup is). However, having the paragraph symbols on while typing can be distracting, so if you want to find out how to turn them off, use one of the methods described in the steps below.

Method 1

Method 1 of 2:

Using the Show/Hide Formatting Marks Button

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In newer versions of Word, the "Show/Hide Formatting Marks" button is located under the “Home” tab in the “Paragraph” section of the toolbar. In older versions of Word however, the button should be on the main toolbar.
The "Show/Hide Formatting Marks" button looks like a paragraph mark (¶). Generally, it is located in the upper right-hand corner of the “Paragraph” section of the toolbar.

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Once you have found the ¶ button, all you need to do is click on it, and the paragraph symbols will be turned off. To turn them back on at a later point, click on the ¶ button again.

Method 2

Method 2 of 2:

Removing the Paragraph Marks in Options

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Sometimes, only certain formatting marks are set to show up in the document, which means the Show/Hide formatting marks button may not work. Instead, click on “File” and then “Options.”
Under “Display” look at the section marked “Always show these formatting marks on the screen.” You should see a checked box labelled "paragraph marks".
At this point you can also turn off any other formatting marks you want to remove, like spaces, hidden text and object anchors.
The paragraph marks will no longer appear automatically in any of your documents. ^{[1]
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