Special characters
As you type a document in Word, many hidden formatting marks are created that you never see unless you choose to unhide them. Word also has what are known as special characters. These are regular text and formatting characters that are not on a standard keyboard. These text special characters belong to fonts and may appear differently in different fonts. Some characters may not be available in all fonts either. The special formatting characters in Word affect the layout of a document.
In this section, we will learn how to show and hide hidden formatting marks and what those marks indicate. We will also learn how to insert those special characters that do not appear on standard keyboards into a document.
The Show/Hide button appears on the Home tab of the Ribbon in the Paragraph section. The button looks somewhat like a backward letter P. It represents the paragraph formatting mark.
The following screenshot shows the Show/Hide ¶ button:
