2 types of paragraph symbols and behavior

In MS Word 2008 There seem to be 2 types of paragraph symbols. They look the
same (when using 'show formatting marks') but act differently as follows:

1. When I click at the end of a paragraph to the right of the paragraph
mark, the cursor goes to the left of one type (e.g. the usual behavior) and
to the right of the other type (e.g. odd behavior).

2. When I copy a section of text that looks like it is made of of several
paragraphs but actually uses the odd paragraph symbol between paragraphs and
then paste the text into another location in the document using 'paste
special / unformatted text' the pasted text no longer has the paragraphs. It
is just a continous section of text (no tabs, no soft return, etc.)

3. If I make a formatting change in one paragraph (for example drag the
indent marker in the ruler) then this change occurs in the following
"paragraph" if the two supposed paragraphs are separated by this odd
paragraph symbol. In other words, the two paragraphs act like they are
actually the same paragraph or maybe separated by a soft return. I have seen
this complaint in other places of the discussion groups but so far the only
answers I've seen discuss the 'automatically update' option in the style
window (this is not the solution to this problem).

I found this new behavior in a document that someone converted from TeX to
Word and then sent it to me (they might have used a Mac for the conversion).

If you have any insight on this I would appreciate it. I can't even do a
find/change since I don't know what this odd paragraph symbol is called.

Thanks

On Thu, 5 Jun 2008 06:18:00 -0700, baga <baga@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>In MS Word 2008 There seem to be 2 types of paragraph symbols. They look the
>same (when using 'show formatting marks') but act differently as follows:
>
>1. When I click at the end of a paragraph to the right of the paragraph
>mark, the cursor goes to the left of one type (e.g. the usual behavior) and
>to the right of the other type (e.g. odd behavior).
>
>2. When I copy a section of text that looks like it is made of of several
>paragraphs but actually uses the odd paragraph symbol between paragraphs and
>then paste the text into another location in the document using 'paste
>special / unformatted text' the pasted text no longer has the paragraphs. It
>is just a continous section of text (no tabs, no soft return, etc.)
>
>3. If I make a formatting change in one paragraph (for example drag the
>indent marker in the ruler) then this change occurs in the following
>"paragraph" if the two supposed paragraphs are separated by this odd
>paragraph symbol. In other words, the two paragraphs act like they are
>actually the same paragraph or maybe separated by a soft return. I have seen
>this complaint in other places of the discussion groups but so far the only
>answers I've seen discuss the 'automatically update' option in the style
>window (this is not the solution to this problem).
>
>I found this new behavior in a document that someone converted from TeX to
>Word and then sent it to me (they might have used a Mac for the conversion).
>
>If you have any insight on this I would appreciate it. I can't even do a
>find/change since I don't know what this odd paragraph symbol is called.
>
>Thanks

In Word, a paragraph mark is represented by an ASCII character 13, but that's
actually just a visual representation of a complex structure in memory that
holds all of the paragraph's formatting.

Sometimes when text is converted from a "foreign" application, the converter
just writes the character but doesn't create the structure that goes along with
it. Then all you have is a carriage return, but it still looks like ¶.

Often you can fix it by opening the Replace dialog, entering the code ^13 in the
Find What box and the code ^p in the Replace With box, and clicking the Replace
All button.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org
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