Naked Science Forum

Non Life Sciences => Geek Speak => Topic started by: Chemistry4me on 23/04/2009 08:13:30

Title: How do I get rid of this on Word 2003?
Post by: Chemistry4me on 23/04/2009 08:13:30

I was typing and editing and suddenly all these random letters and symbols appeared, I must have done something wrong, because a whole page of them popped up! E.g. ^@%*634378^@987498645$@12046)(*&@981749-07*^@%#76$%#1783(^%`92^*53!(&^~$%367860&*&@0987^&@8578^%@&*%#@$#@@$^$#^!^@`%#6&427~@#17)(#&63074`923^

After I undo-ed everything I still had this funny thing going on like: 

 [ Invalid Attachment ]

How do I get rid of those dots and those arrows and those other symbols?

Title: How do I get rid of this on Word 2003?
Post by: Don_1 on 23/04/2009 09:25:07

I don't have 2003 any more, but as I recall there is something in the drop down under 'show' where these can be removed.

Title: How do I get rid of this on Word 2003?
Post by: Chemistry4me on 23/04/2009 09:33:23

No, I've solved it! Thanks Don_1! Even though you did not help me at all! I fixed it while trying to look for a 'show' drop down! [:D]

Title: How do I get rid of this on Word 2003?
Post by: Chemistry4me on 23/04/2009 09:39:49

It was this little button that was causing the trouble!

 [ Invalid Attachment ]

Although I have no idea how it was pushed.

Title: How do I get rid of this on Word 2003?
Post by: Don_1 on 23/04/2009 09:52:08

Ah! Seems my recollection of Word 2003 is about as good as my recollection of .... erm, ahhhh, doh what was it now? Oh yes, sex.(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fbestsmileys.com%2Fexploding%2F2.gif&hash=f3fb8236d54899b1cc1889c2ec2864f3)

Title: How do I get rid of this on Word 2003?
Post by: Chemistry4me on 23/04/2009 09:55:07

Your smiley doesn't appear to be working or? Is it meant to be exploding?

Title: How do I get rid of this on Word 2003?
Post by: Don_1 on 23/04/2009 10:12:58

It's like me, confused.

Title: How do I get rid of this on Word 2003?
Post by: Chemistry4me on 23/04/2009 10:17:05

Here, have a talking duck, it's on the house.

(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fbestsmileys.com%2Fcartoon%2F10.gif&hash=1c07e99a58f399ffc2cce9cbe4eb8e0b)

Title: How do I get rid of this on Word 2003?
Post by: Chemistry4me on 23/04/2009 10:57:14

Quote from: Chemistry4me on 23/04/2009 09:39:49

It was this little button that was causing the trouble!

 [ Invalid Attachment ]

Although I have no idea how it was pushed.

EDIT: I was copying off a website and it had a little advertisement picture which also got copied and when I tried to paste it onto Word, all those funny symbols came up and then that button was pushed (somehow).

Title: How do I get rid of this on Word 2003?
Post by: MonikaS on 23/04/2009 11:03:48

Those symbols are the "unprintables", because they only show up on the screen, but not when the document is printed. They show spaces, returns tabs etc. They can be quite useful when formating text.

Title: How do I get rid of this on Word 2003?
Post by: Chemistry4me on 23/04/2009 11:06:16

Ah, I see. But there were two pictures, one pasted fine but the other just gave those symbols. [???]
Warum?

------
Warum warum ist die Banane krumm?  [:)]

Title: How do I get rid of this on Word 2003?
Post by: MonikaS on 23/04/2009 11:24:08

I guess the picture was somewhat broken and had some errors inside. Word wasn't able to decode it properly and translated the bits/bytes to characters. Perhaps one of those charactors was the CRTL-code for toggling between Unprintables On/Off.

As for the bananas... don't you know that there are millions of people in Africa just bending them?  [;D]

Title: How do I get rid of this on Word 2003?
Post by: Don_1 on 23/04/2009 11:28:15

Quote from: Chemistry4me on 23/04/2009 11:06:16

Warum warum ist die Banane krumm?  [:)]

I blame Uri Geller.

Title: How do I get rid of this on Word 2003?
Post by: Bored chemist on 23/04/2009 22:15:54

Quote from: MonikaS on 23/04/2009 11:03:48

Those symbols are the "unprintables", because they only show up on the screen, but not when the document is printed. They show spaces, returns tabs etc. They can be quite useful when formating text.

I'll say they are ******** unprintable!

Title: How do I get rid of this on Word 2003?
Post by: nicephotog on 25/04/2009 05:20:46

That character information is simply the image data byte values read as human readable string characters. You can open small images in text editors and see the alike(not a recommended action).

Some of the time if the special binary encoded system of the file (this time probably with an unusual extension like .swf .idt) requires a special compression or cryption system it will be required to download and install that image(not video) codec into the OS so it can render the image.

Title: How do I get rid of this on Word 2003?
Post by: Ophiolite on 25/04/2009 09:13:11

The 'little button' is invaluable for sorting out formatting problems in a complex document. Be glad you have discovered it.

Title: How do I get rid of this on Word 2003?
Post by: Chemistry4me on 25/04/2009 09:35:18

Indeed I am! [:)] I was tearing my hair out.