Sometimes I see special symbols are showing up at the end of each paragraph in my Microsoft Word document. What are they?

If you special symbols showing up at the end of each paragraph, they are called formatting symbols (also called formatting marks). Formatting symbols are hidden by default.

You can display them by pressing Ctrl-* or clicking the formatting symbol icon in the "Paragraph" group of the Home tab. Displaying formatting symbols helps you to understand how each part is being formatted.

Here is a list of those formatting symbols or marks and their meanings:

➝   U+279D, TRIANGLE-HEADED RIGHTWARDS ARROW, representing a tab
·   U+00B7, MIDDLE DOT, representing a space character
¬   U+00AC, NOT SIGN, representing an optional hyphen
â–    U+25A0, BLACK SQUARE, representing the start of a styled paragraph
¶   U+00B6, PILCROW SIGN, representing the end of a styled paragraph
 Soft Pilcrow Sign, representing the end of a normal paragraph
↵   U+21B5, DOWNWARDS ARROW WITH CORNER LEFTWARDS,
    representing a line break, also called soft return
 Circle on X, representing the end of a cell or row of a table
âš“   U+2693, ANCHOR', representing the location of an object
    Circle with Hidden Cross, representing end of a table cell or row
...... Page break mark
:::::: Section break mark

 

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