Alien Characters in Blank Email by Default

[WG774]

Hi,
I use Outlook 2003.
I have a signature, the usual, "This email is intended for the" - blah.
When I click on "new" email, I get an indent, a bit like Greek alphabet, in the left hand margin.

I can't turn it off and all the settings / preferences, i.e. formatting etc look standard. I now can't send emails for fear that people will think I'm an idiot who can't turn off a function.

Is it a bug or have I turned on a foreign language function?
I've spent over an hour trying to find the menu to turn it off... I'm self-employed and I'm nowhere without email.

Any help appreciated.

The characters look like a reversed P, with a double straight stroke. I can't copy them here, alas.

I suspect I have turned on a function as I went to hit "new" and hit CTRL or something, whereupon the screen added all these evil characters.

Every time I hit return, it adds a new one in the left margin.

Thanks in advance. :ugh:

[Keef]

Does it look like ¶ that?

That's a "paragraph" sign. I don't use Outlook, but in Word and that ilk it means you've turned on "show formatting characters".

Are you sure it actually appears in e-mails you send out? Some of those things only appear on your screen.

There is an article here (http://ask-leo.com/why_doesnt_my_email_format_properly_in_outlook.html) which talks about something similar.

[vapilot2004]

Open a new email in Outlook. Click the ¶ button if you have one on the standard toolbar to toggle the little devils on or off.

You can also click Tools > Options and in the View tab uncheck any and all that are in the Formatting Marks section when composing a new email. This menu is only available in the editing window.

Good Luck!

[Saab Dastard]

AFAIK,

Outlook uses Word (if available) as the text editor by default. It is possible that you have inadvertently toggled between Outlook's text editor and Word.

SD

[WG774]

Once I knew it was a "paragraph" icon, I was able to experiment by turning toolbars on and off.

Once I got a toolbar that showed the ¶, it wouldn't illuminate, so I couldn't switch it off.

However, once I highlighted everything in the email, it illuminated... I switched it off, and now I have my email back to normal again.

I really don't know where I'd be without the help I've received here.

Many thanks to all for the assistance :)