Fix formatting of my Word for Apple document

Hello Goldsmith, Geoffrey,

Thank you for posting on Microsoft Q&A forum

Based on your description, it sounds like your Word switched views and also converted your paragraph marks into single line breaks, so you see single‑spaced text, no proper paragraph/chapter breaks, and a little box at the left of each line.

On Word for Mac, that “box” is typically the Style Area Pane that appears in Draft or Outline view. Here are some setting you could use to restore your document format to the way it was before:

If the formatting changed recently, try using the Undo feature (Command + Z) to revert to the previous state before the changes were made.

In case you can't recert back anymore, try getting out of Draft/Outline view & hide the style pane:

• Open View > Print Layout (puts you back in the normal page layout).

If you still see those boxes on the left, try reducing the Style area width:

• Word > Preferences > View > Style area width in Draft & Outline views > set to 0.
• Or simply switch away from Draft/Outline view; the style area only appears there.

If your format still not return to normal, try converting line breaks back into real paragraphs by using find and replace:

• Open Edit > Find > Advanced Find and Replace.

In the replace tab:

• Find what: ^l (that’s a manual line break on Mac/Win)
• Replace with: ^p (paragraph mark)
• Click Replace All.

If you also see odd boxes at line ends, try a second pass:

• Find what: ^n (column break/newline in some files)
• Replace with: ^p

Caution: Please don't replace spaces with paragraph marks and avoid replacing ^p blindly you could destroy true paragraphs or headings.

Try all of the method and setting above then update me on the situation, I'll continue to assist you.

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