Pipe symbols appearing intermittently in a large Word document (2007 & 2010 both versions)

I have a large word document (about 140 pages). The problem I have is that Word keeps placing a pipe ( | ) symbol throughout the document. The pipes seem to act as a page break, but there are no other 'invisible' symbols like paragraph marks, etc., and using the menu to show invisible characters has no effect on the pipe symbols.

I can select them individually, but I can't copy / paste them into the search/replace tool, and there are several hundred instances, and new ones appear as the document grows. They appear intermittently, with no real rhyme or reason as far as I can see. Also, copying a small part of the document with the pipe symbols to a new file has no effect either.

Does anyone know WHY these pipe symbols are appearing, and HOW to work with them and remove them permanently? I have attached an image that shows the symbols on a random page.

Note: The document is a personal spanish / english dictionary, but I do not think the language is part of the issue.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Roger

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Suzanne S. Barnhill

Assuming these symbols are occurring in empty paragraphs (that is, you're using empty paragraphs to separate text instead of Spacing Before/After) check to see whether there is a bar tab set in these paragraphs (open the Tabs dialog and clear all tab stops).

Do the symbols appear in Print Preview? Do they print? When you select one and go to the Symbol dialog is the pipe character selected? Or if you select one and press Alt+X, do you get 007C?

If they were in the margin, I would be inclined to suspect change bars, but since they do appear to be part of the text, that can't be the answer.

You say, "The pipes seem to act as a page break," but it doesn't appear that there are page breaks where these symbols appear (all the text is on one page).

Microsoft MVP (Word) since 1999
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://ssbarnhill.com
http://wordfaqs.ssbarnhill.com
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Pipe symbols appearing intermittently in a large Word document (2007 & 2010 both versions)

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