You have non-printing characters displayed. The symbol you decribe is the
"pilcrow" and marks the end of each paragraph.

Press CTRL+Shift+* to toggle the display.

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Greg Maxey/Word MVP
A Peer in Peer to Peer Support

Fjetfamily wrote:
Before typing anything on a new Word document, there is what looks
like a roman numeral two (II), but the top is closed, the bottom is
open and on the left numeral looks like a backwards capitol P with
the P being filled in. It appears on every line and is always before
the cursor. Also, if you right click, it looks like the symbol in
the "Paragraph" icon. What is it and how do I get rid of it?