Show Formatting Marks

Publisher doesn't offer detailed control over which formatting marks are displayed. The ¶ button on the Home tab of the ribbon toggles the display of spaces, tabs, optional hyphens, manual line breaks, paragraph marks and end-off-cell markers, all at once.

Publisher doesn't offer detailed control over which formatting marks are displayed. The ¶ button on the Home tab of the ribbon toggles the display of spaces, tabs, optional hyphens, manual line breaks, paragraph marks and end-off-cell markers, all at once.

As I stated, I have already clicked on the ¶ button. If what you posted is correct why am I just seeing the paragraph marks and not ALL the formatting marks as you listed above?

Why does  https://support.office.com/en-us/article/show-or-hide-formatting-marks-c2d8a607-5646-4165-8b08-bd68f9d172a0 say that the instructions I quoted above "Applies To: Word 2016 Publisher 2016 Word 2013 Publisher 2013 Word 2010 Publisher 2010 Word 2007 Publisher 2007"?

Formatting marks are used way more in desktop publishing than word processing! It's ridiculous that they are available in Word and not Publisher!

I'm afraid I don't know why you don't see all the formatting marks.

You could submit a suggestion to Microsoft at https://publisher.uservoice.com/

Go back and read the page more closely and you will see some fine print:

"Note: Publisher uses some formatting marks."

Bottom line is that this is yet another example of where some functionality in Word is not also provided with Publisher. Sorry.

DavidF

Why does Microsoft keep "fixing" that which is not broken?? I have depended on the formatting marks in Publisher for more than 20 years!

Why is it that Microsoft feels it's OK to outright LIE on your so-called support website?

You know, during these past 20+ years people have told me over & over again that Publisher is garbage & that I should use something else. I have always defended Publisher, saying that I knew it well, liked it and that it always did the job for me.

Well, if I said any of that now, I would be lying... Publisher has become garbage pure & simple. It's no longer worth my time or the space on my computer. Every time I have asked Support for help on something that I was always able to do that I no longer can, I get the same basic answer: "Oh, well, gee, the Support site is wrong. Windows 10/Word/Publisher/Excel/etc. doesn't/can't/won't do that any more. You prefer the better features & functionality of the previous versions? Too bad! So sad! You are a captive audience, there is nothing you can do about it and there is nothing we will do about it, so just deal with it."

Same thing when Windows 10 corrupted my computer. I could no longer access the start menu and I kept being logged off whenever I tried. Support gave a list of things to try, none of which worked. The last solution was to do a refresh. I was fed, and unfortunately believed, the lie that my personal files & settings and any apps I got from the store would be maintained. Over a month later and I am still trying to get the computer back to the way it was before the Windows 10 refresh screwed it up on me! I could be wrong, but I swear the formatting marks were available before I had to reinstall Office 365! I have had numerous issues with Word & Excel since the refresh too. (Note, I had to reinstall Office 365 even though "support" said it would still be there!)

Looks like I am now in the market for a new desktop publisher. I might as well just ditch Office 365 Home and cancel my subscription all together because the only reason I chose it when I upgraded was because of Publisher.

Every interaction I have had with Microsoft lately, from the destruction of my computer by Windows 10 and now this and other **** with Office has proved to me that it is time to get away from Windows and join the Apple crowd. I wish I could sue to get back the vast amount of time & money I have lost in the past month or two because of Microsoft's so-called fixes & updates.

I am sick to death of dealing with it. Customer "support" indeed. (End of rant.)

I have been using Publisher since Pub97 and have all versions through 2013. I refused Pub 2016...way too buggy and too much functionality gone. I too like the format marks but only remember the paragraph, space, tab and hard return (shift+return key) marks. Are you saying that only the paragraph symbol remains with Pub 2016? I don't even know what those other symbols that are available in Word are all about.

If you have been using Publisher for 20 years then that suggests you have the installation media and keycodes of older versions of Publisher. You can run all versions of Publisher back to Pub 2000 on Win10. Why don't you just install one of the older versions?

Note that you cannot run Office/Publisher 2013 with Office 2016 programs. But you could install Pub 2010, 2007 etc. if you want to run Office 365/2016.

FWIW I don't like the direction MS has taken Publisher either and feel that Pub 2007 was probably the best version...pre-ribbon. I use it and Pub 2000 for my production work.  I would skip Pub 2013 and 2016...too buggy and missing functionality I value. I also refuse to run Win10...but that is another story.

Good luck.

DavidF

Hi David,

Thank you for your kind response to last night's rant!

I sincerely wish I could go back to an earlier version of Office! Unfortunately however, I don't have access to the installation CDs anymore. I had installed it on both my old desktop & old laptop using the disks under the license keys of a former employer (with permission) so I could work from home. Unfortunately, both of those computers have since died and 2 years ago I had to replace them with the laptop I am currently using. (I was lucky to get my files off of them before they completely died!) Being suddenly self-employed, I couldn't afford to buy Office outright, especially the version that included Publisher, so I subscribed to Office 365. If I remember correctly, the last version I had installed was 2003... maybe 2007. If the old computers weren't packed away somewhere, I'd try to fire one or both up to see which version I was used to.

My current laptop (an HP bought directly from HP) came with Windows 8.1 installed.  The Windows 8.1 version that was installed on the machine was so horribly messed up that HP had to send me a free set of 8.1 recovery disks before I could even use it! When 10 became available, I was able to upgrade to 10 free of cost. (Not such a great perk, I guess!) I waited quite a while before I did the actual upgrade to 10 to give them time to work out some of the bugs. That didn't do me much good either!

Although I have never really liked Office 365, I honestly don't remember having the issues I am currently having before I had to do the Windows 10 refresh a month or so ago. Nothing on my computer seems to work quite right since then.

I have been using Publisher on a nearly daily basis since around 1996 and dabbled with it before then. I very much miss the older versions. Maybe I will check out Ebay and see if I can find an older version of Office that includes Publisher for a reasonable price that I can use until I can afford an Apple computer.

You know, at 56 years-old, I have become fairly set in my ways... I don't want or need this kind of agita, lol!

Sure, I can certainly learn new things, but the disruption to my productivity because I have to keep learning how to do things I used to know how to do like second nature, is a major hit to my bottom line. I often find that things that should and used to only take me minutes are now taking hours because I have to figure how to do it all over again. (Don't get me started about how things like to changes themselves back after you think you have it all set!) The Support website is no help at all because the "support" they give is wrong most of the time.

It doesn't appear that Microsoft gives a flying fig about what their customers want and need. They know we are stuck with them whether we like it or not. Perhaps however, they should stop & think about the fact that we Baby Boomers are becoming the largest demographic in the country (if we aren't already.) Microsoft should be working to make things easier for us, not more complicated!

One last thought, I went to school for computer programming back in the early 1980s graduating with a 4.0 GPA. I learned COBOL, FORTRAN, BASIC, etc. At the beginning of my working career it was DOS & the Pick operating systems that I was working with. When Windows came out, it was a revolution! The first word processor I used was WordPerfect. When a board or something went bad in the physical computer, I was the one to figure out what the problem was then order & install the part. I say all this to show I am not stupid. I am not a computer illiterate. I am fully capable of learning.

Anyway David, thanks again for listening to my rants. Microsoft, I SURRENDER! Apple, here I come.