Word allows you to hide text so you can read or print the document as if the text wasn't there. It seems pointless because if you don't want others to read it, why not delete the text?But hidden text does have some interesting uses. Let's take a look at what hidden text is (and what isn't), why you want to hide it, and how to hide it.
Word hides text by using formatting marks, just like you would format text in bold or italics. Word does not delete text, but instead applies a formatting mark that says "This text is not displayed".
Because hidden text is just standard text with formatting tags applied, anyone who can edit the document can search for hidden text and display it. Therefore, this is not a security measure, and you should never rely on hidden text to stop strong-willed people from reading the contents of your document. If you don't want others to read what you've written, either delete the text altogether or don't send them the document.
Hidden text does have its uses. If you want to print a document without displaying certain text, you can use hidden text (although make sure you don't have the option to print hidden text turned on). A great use for this is if you have a document to print and distribute to an audience, but you want the copy of the document to contain notes that only work for you.
You may also want different people to view different parts of the document, and hidden text provides an easy way to show only the parts you need one person to view (as long as you don't mind if they see it when they find hidden text).
You can also hide images and other embedded objects, which can reduce printing time and costs, and improve the readability of documents if you only want plain text.
Note: You can only do this in the Word client on your computer. Word Online and the Word app for Android and iPhone (currently) don't allow you to hide text.
Hiding text is very simple. Select the text you want to hide, switch to the Home tab on the ribbon, and then click the arrow in the lower-right corner of the Fonts group.
This will open the Fonts window. Tick the "Hide" option and click the "OK" button.
That's all. The text you selected is no longer visible, as if you had deleted it from the document. If mouse clicks are too much for you, there's also a keyboard shortcut to hide the text – select your text and click Ctrl+Shift+H.
Hide objects in the same way as you hide text – select the object and tick the "Hide" field in the Font panel (or use Ctrl+Shift+H). This method only works if the object uses the default text wrapping option "Align to Text", i.e. Word treats the object as another piece of text. If your object has different text wrapping options, but you still want to hide it, you must hide the paragraph that the object is anchored to. This will also hide the anchored object.
To unhide text, reverse the process. Select it and press Ctrl+Shift+H or uncheck the Hide field in the Font panel.
But if you can't see the hidden text, how do you select it in the first place?Because hidden text is just plain text with formatting tags applied, you need to show all formatting marks. This will reveal your hidden text.
To show all formatting marks, click Start > Show Hide.
If you want, you can also press Ctrl+Shift+8. This will display all non-printing characters in the document, such as paragraph marks, spaces, and tabs.
There is a dotted line below the hidden text that is used to distinguish it from regular text.
Select the hidden text and use Ctrl+Shift+H or the Font Hide setting to unhide the text.
If you have a lot of hidden text to unhide, or you don't want to search for hidden text throughout the document, no problem. Click Ctrl+A to select all the text in the document, and then use one of the same methods (Ctrl+Shift+H or Font Hide) to unhide all hidden text in the entire document (except for the header or footer, which must be done separately).
Click "Home" > "Show Hidden", or press Ctrl+Shift+8 again to hide the formatting marker.
We mentioned at the top of this article that you can only hide unhide text in the Word client, not in Word Online. The same goes for display formatting marks, which you can do in the Word desktop app.
Yes, we've shown you how to do this using Find and Replace before. You can use this method to select which hidden text to remove, but if you just want to make sure that any hidden text is removed, go to File > Check for Issues > Verify Documents.
The option you're looking for is right at the bottom, and it's called "Hidden Text". Make sure all other options are turned off (unless you want to use them at the same time) and click the "Check" button.
If the Document Inspector finds any hidden text, it displays a "Delete All" button. Click this button to remove all hidden text from the document.
You can't undo this, make sure you really want to delete any hidden text, or save another copy of the document first.
If you use OneDrive or SharePoint, you can share your documents with other people. When the person you share the hidden text with views the document in Word Online, the hidden text remains hidden because Word Online doesn't allow you to hide unhide text or show formatting marks. They can still be copied and viewed in the Word application. When they do, they can click on the home page to show Hide and view the hidden text. So, again, don't share documents with hidden text unless you agree with those who might see your hidden content.