"there are codes that precede and follow all formatted text -- however, in word they are invisible, in an effort to be less intimidating than word perfect (this is the "clarity at the expense of functionality" tactic that apple follows, too). " Actually, this is not strictly true. If you notice, Word97 has several toolbars (the number depends on which ones you chose under the View/Toolbars option). These toolbars take the place of some the codes that WordPerfect had. These replace the printing codes. (bold on/off, alignment, etc)There are also non-printing characters (tab characters, paragraph marks, etc.). If you wish to see these, you can turn them on under Tools/Options/View. You can turn off or on any non printing character that you wish. The only minor setback is that Word97 does not show you at a glance all the formatting, if formatting changes during the course of the document. It is sometimes necessary to highlight a specific section of the document, at which time the formatting for the selected text will be shown in the manner I have described above. --Sam Smilie [log in to unmask] PCSOFT: http://nospin.com or [log in to unmask]