How to Show Paragraph Marks in InDesign (2021)

Reveal paragraph and other hidden marks in Adobe InDesign with this simple guide

Co-authored by Richard Marczewski Jr. and Darlene Antonelli, MA

Last Updated: June 16, 2023

If you want complete control over paragraph breaks and see a break you don't like, you'll most likely want to see all the hidden markups in your project. This wikiHow teaches you how to show paragraph and other hidden character marks in InDesign.

Things You Should Know

Click Type atop the menu bar to begin.
Click Show Hidden Characters. Ensure that you are in "Normal" and not "Preview" mode.
Disable "Overprint Preview" as well to ensure that you can see the paragraph marks in your design.

Steps

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1
Open your project in InDesign. You can either open the program from your Start menu or Applications folder then click File > Open or you can right-click the InDesign project file and select Open with > InDesign.
- This doesn't permanently show hidden characters, so you'll have to redo these steps each time you want to see them.
You'll see this in the menu bar at the top of your screen with File, Edit, and Help.

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3
Click Show Hidden Characters. It's at the bottom of the menu.
- If your screen mode is set to "Preview," you won't see any special characters and need to switch it back to "Normal" to continue. You'll find the view options under the View tab in the menu bar.
- If you see "Overprint Preview" next to the title of your project, you won't be able to see hidden characters. Turn it off by going to View > Overprint Preview.
- Hide those paragraph marks and other hidden characters by clicking Hide Hidden Characters in the Type menu.

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Tips

If you're using a Mac, press Alt + Cmd + I and if you're using Windows, press Alt + Ctrl + I to show hidden characters. You can also press Alt + Cmd + Shift + Y(Mac) or Alt + Ctrl + Shift + Y(Windows) to turn off "Overprint Preview."^{[1]
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