Another strange thing happened when I upgraded from MS Office 2003 to 2007. When I compose an email, paragraph marks show up all over the page. I find them very distracting and not particularly useful. (I used to use them back when WordPerfect was the dominant word processor, but that was because it sometimes helped to “reveal codes” in WordPerfect if the formatting of the page was going screwy — which it often did.)
Anyway, to get rid of these codes, open a new message and click on the Office orb (the circular thingy at the top left of the page that used to be the “File” menu). Click on the “Editor Options” button on the bottom right. Click on “Display”. From there you should be able to toggle the paragraph marker settings off.
After searching for hours to uncheck the mark paragraph setting, I googled to your tip. And yes, it works ! Thanks [bold] a lot [bold] !
Hey Rob,
Thanks for taking the time to let me know that you found the tip useful!
It took me ages to figure out how to turn off the paragraph marks too. It shouldn’t really be so hard to find, eh?
I somehow turned it on using a strange key combination and couldn’t figure out how I had done it, so I definitely couldn’t figure out how to turn it off again.
Googling “turn off paragraph marks outlook 2007” brought me to this page. Thanks for saving me hours of time!
Glad to help!
Thanks for the tip it was driving me nuts
Thank you! This was really annoying. Can’t figure out how it turned on automatically because I have been using Outlook 2007 for months and today it suddenly turned itself on!
Hi Usha,
That’s weird! Well, I’m glad I could help fix the situation!
Hello Shaney,
I tried to hide the paragrah marks for many times, finally done.Thanks for your tips here..
I have removed them from new messages but I still see them in my replies. How do i get rid of them? Wow, what a practice in self control, i want to pull my hair out!
Hi Coon,
I wish I could help you, but actually, I have stopped using Outlook entirely since I posted this message. I have switched to using only web-based mail clients because I need to be able to access my email from everywhere.
Thanks a million, Shaney. I was about to lose the last few of my hairs.
Thanks for the tip. That was the weirdest thing ever.
Wow, you just saved me so much frustration! Thanks so much for posting this…
Same as Chambers- some odd key combo turned on ‘show paragraph marks’ and just didn’t have the research time to find the fix until now- also drove me nuts! Thanks for posting this guide!
Thanks, it works!
The paragraph marks suddenly shows up and I can’t find where to turn it off.
Hey Guys!
You can switch the text format tool on by pressing “Alt”+”O”. Then you can turn the function off (by click or by “Alt”+”8”.
Cheers!
Thanks for your quick fix.
this is so helpful… I have spent so much time trying to find this setting to turn off this paragraph mark. ARRRggggg. Thanks for taking the time to share this tip.
I have a somewhat related issue. If anyone could help me out, that would be great. I only have paragraph marks that turn on in Outlook, but only to replys, not on any new e-mails. They only turn on to reply’s when you type a character in the text portion of a reply. I have to toggle the paragraph marks off every time I reply to an e-mail. Anybody have any suggestions?
THANK YOU
THANK YOU
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOU THANK YOU. After hours of struggle I found your solution. I appreciate it..
thanks
Barry
Thanks for posting this information!!
Thanks a TON!!!
Shaney. Big thanks. Problem appeared for me when I added some additional signatures but stayed when I deleted them. Totally confusing. Searched everywhere to solve it. Why do Microsoft make it so darn difficult ?
So glad I took the time to write this up. Clearly it’s been (and continues to be) an issue for lots of people!
Hey, thanks for the tip. I too pressed some goofy hotkey sequence and blew up Outlook 2007 to this bass-ackwards formatting view.
Thanks for being my IT consultant today!
Thanks a bunch! For some reason, my school computer here in Japan automatically turns these on, and they’re horrendously distracting. None of my Japanese teachers knew how to turn them off, though – they seemed to think it was normal. Thanks for the help!
Thank you so much. That view was driving me nuts. Much appreciated.
For no apparent reason these format paragraph marks turned on one day… how annoying! Thank you so much for posting the solution – Happy New Year!
Thank you!
Thank you very much! The paragraph symbols just appeared on my work computer yesterday and I have spent so long trying how to hide them. Should have visited this page sooner! :-)
Thank you so much–you saved a TON of wasted time trying to figure out where these markings came from!
OMG! So easy! I knew how to do it before I had 2007 and then bam…i did something and those formatting thingies came up! Your explanation was the easiest to follow! Thanks!
I accidentally turned on this display option by a wrong keystroke combination (ctrl+something) and had no sucess trying to “retrace my steps” so as to turn this option off. Your solution worked. Thanks!
tip worked to remove paragraph symbols in outlook 2007. thank you.
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you…Don’t know how it turned on, but so glad you got those marks erased.
I copied and pasted something which somehow triggered the paragraph symbol to appear in outlook 2007. Your tip was a blessing as it took me right to the problem and saved me untold hours of searching. Thanks a million!
Knew how to remove paragraph mark in Windows 95, i was copying and pasting and the symbol just appeared from no where. And i did have problem finding where to go to have it removed. Windows help was my last port of call, and your explanation were spot on..great and really appreciate it..
Shaney – Thank you for this GREAT tip! Was at another site and their explanation was not one we could follow. (Right click on the tabs line of the menu) huh?
Thanks again for taking the time to document proper procedure!
I somehow switched on the edit marks. I would have never found the solution with your post. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Thanks for the tip. I couldn’t stand the markings and am sooooooooooooo glad to be rid of them now.
Easy to follow your instructions
Same experience – sudden appearance of paragraph marks with an absent minded keystroke. Going to Editor Options in the “Office Button” allowed clearing marks, but use of Alt-O (not zero) and Alt-8 seems to be unpredictable ways to restore/remove the marks. There’s more to this that would benefit by explanation. E.g., just pressing and releasing “Alt” places letter tags next to many icons on the Menu bar. Could be useful alternative to mouse clicking, but where’s all this explained?
A winner of a cure. Thanks!
Thank you. After a copy and paste into an e-mail created a deafault for the paragraph markers, I spent a great deal of time searching for this and finally came across your response. It works! Much better than MS directions, which I couild not figure out. again, Thanks.
Thanks for this tip. very helpful.
This is really helpful, thank you.
Awesome thank you for this post!!!! helpful
Thank you so much saved me so much time and reducecd stress levels !!!
Years later and we are all saying thank you!! It’s good to have help in non-tech English, i.e., that “thingy” in the upper left.
I have done all the above but it is still there when I start a new email. And now it’s starting to appear when I reply back to an email. How do I get it to save? I click it to go away, but it won’t stay away! Please help me!
I am going to ditto everyone else’s sentiments. THANK YOU. Everyone else said to hit the paragraph symbol and that simply was not working for me. This was quite annoying.