Grr paragraph marks in Word on Mac

[ForeverbyJudyBlume]

I do a lot of work using Word on my Mac. Suddenly today at the beginning of each paragraph there's a small blue symbol. I am usually fairly good at this kind of stuff but have spent hours googling how to get rid of this with absolutely no joy. It's really annoying as I have to send documents to clients regularly and they are not going to want them with weird formatting marks attached. If anyone can help then

Maybe I’m misunderstanding but it’s a simple click on click, off button on your toolbar. It’s towards the right hand side and looks like a backwards “P”

Is it just showing the formatting in screen (ie,. Doesn't print out)?

I recall years ago this would be "show invisibles", basically just displaying the formatting, but it wouldn't print/show up if someone else poems the file up.had a search, this might help
kb.iu.edu/d/ajfe

Thank you very much both, sadly it's not the backward P, I'm able to get rid of that, it's a tiny blue mark at the beginning of each para. Too tiny to see what it is, though I THINK it might be a blue cross

I haven't tried to print out (I've actually run out of ink tonight) and I send my documents to clients as attachments. TBH, whether it's an invisible or not doesn't matter to me - it is bloody annoying to work with all these little blue marks there.

When I google, this is the kind of advice I get

From the Word menu, select Preferences....
Select View.
In the section titled "Nonprinting characters", check or uncheck the appropriate boxes to view the marks of your choice. Check All to see all formatting marks.
To save your changes, click OK.

Sadly, I don't have a section called Nonprinting characters. Every line of pursuit I try seems to end up like this. Aargh.

Similarly @StillRunningWithScissors when I try to find Options or Word Options as suggested in your lovely link I get nowhere. They don't appear to exist.

I know it's a first world problem, but it's my job and it's driving me a bit nuts

Does it show up when you save as / print to PDF? If not, I wouldn't worry about it (apart from it annoying you)

Is it any if the ones here? This seems quite comprehensive.

wordfaqs.ssbarnhill.com/NonprintChars.htm

Its not a custom bullet is it ?

What happens when you click on it?

Word 2016 and 365 have light blue triangles beside headings. You can expand and collapse the section with them. They don't appear in print or PDF.

Thanks everyone, i just had a very nasty moment when trying out a few things and I appeared to have lost the entire huge document but eventually retrieved it

When I save as the blue marks still appear, which means they appear when I send the docs to other people. So not just annoying for me.

@amigagal thank you for that list, I've tried many of the things on it but with no luck

@potatoscallop when I right click I get a drop down menu but it doesn't show me how to get rid of it

@notageek I don't know what a custom bullet is! Possibly this is the answer ...

@potatoscallop when I left click on it I get a blue cross!! Does that mean anything?

Can you show us a screenshot?

Is it the paragraph style that's changed?

You can create a series of bullet points by clicking on the icon button at the top which shows something like 3 small dots each with a line opposite. If you click this on and off does it make a difference ? Does the symbol go away ?

If you want to send a page to me I’ll be happy to try some things out on it for you. Send me a pm if you’d like me to try 😊

Here's a screenshot, it's the little blue mark at the beginning of each paragraph ...

Those are bullet points surely. Turn off the bullet points.

Because of the formatting (i.e. indentation) it looks like a bullet. But when you start a new document, the same thing happens? Have you tried shutting down and reopening? Does it ask you to save a new template?

The same thing happens when I start a new document

And when I go to bullets and switch off it makes no difference - when I switch bullets on, I get this ...

You have changed your view to outline.
You need to change back to your normal view :)

(sorry - posted too soon)
At the bottom of the page or in the tool bar, just change it to print layout or whatever you usually use

OH MY GOD!!

Thank you so much @m00rfarm

It's fixed.

I would never have got that in a million years. I bet it had something to do with my kids using my laptop last night ...

Now my margins are all messed up but I am fairly sure I can fix that myself. If not, I'll be back

Thank you again