Comments on: List of Hidden Characters (“What is that weird character in my text?”)

By: Mayoor

Mayoor — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 18:35:12 +0000

I recently encountered a weird problem while placing text from a word document in an Indesign document. On one of the pages, the paragraph return mark (hidden character) is of a red color, instead of the customary blue color. Also, this problem is limited to a single page only, whereas, on the pages before & after this page the paragraph return is blue in color. Does this signify some problem or can it be safely ignored

By: David Blatner

David Blatner — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:53:55 +0000

@Andrew: I assume you mean something other than question marks… perhaps the characters did not come in properly? You may need to make a screen capture and post it to one of the image sharing sites and link to it here so we can see it.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 09:35:10 +0000

Has anybody seen symbols like this before?

?????????????

What are they and what do they mean?

By: David Blatner

David Blatner — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:34:13 +0000

You know, I've heard of things going wrong like that, but it's unclear what is happening. Rebuilding your preferences may clear it up.

By: Katy

Katy — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:03:21 +0000

I migrated from CS3 to CS4 yesterday. I always have the hidden characters showing. Yesterday I saw the normal paragraph symbols, etc. Today I am seeing lines for the paragraph symbol and a strange “z” with a dot on top instead of a soft return. I want to go back to seeing the original symbols. How do I fix this?

By: Carol F. Metzger

Carol F. Metzger — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 02:28:43 +0000

It worked! I love you.

(I think we knew each other on the Adobe Forum decades ago). I was Carol F Mason then.

By: David Blatner

David Blatner — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 02:20:26 +0000

@Carol: The position in the Glyphs panel is not unusual; that's the normal place for the space character. But the fact that ID is using the wrong font (or something) to show you those hidden characters is mysterious. I suggest rebuilding your preferences.

By: Carol F. Metzger

Carol F. Metzger — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 01:37:05 +0000

New (to me) puzzle: With hidden characters showing, all of the simple spaces (spacebar) in the text I have imported are showing up as a slightly baseline shifted number “5.”

The font is Minion Pro Regular (OTF); the spacebar placeholder is not in that font, and does not change when I change the body font.

On the Glyphs palette, this little 5 is identified as the very first square of the grid, just before the !

Huh?

These 5’s are a little distracting. I’m used to seeing a small dot. I do get the dot in the Story Editor, but not on the normal page view.

By: David Blatner

David Blatner — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 12:00:16 +0000

@Simona: Wow, that is strange! You may have to rebuild your preferences. Is it all documents, or just one? Are just the space characters wrong, or all the hidden characters?

By: Simona - Dubai

Simona - Dubai — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 05:38:10 +0000

Following this thread, I have a question for you: how do I change back my hidden character symbols? spaces are now daggers and not dots, and I’d like to move it back…

Thank you!