In this particular instance, it indicates that the style is formatted as
"Keep with next." See http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/NonPrintChars.htm
for more. This can be vital in troubleshooting problems with outlines. Many
users, especially if they use Outline view, create outlines by applying the
built-in heading styles, but, as you have noted, Headings 1-4 are formatted
as "Keep with next." If you don't have any body text-level text between
them, then Word has severe pagination problems! In such cases the solution
is to remove the KWN formatting from, say, Heading 3 and 4.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"Ridge Kennedy" wrote in message
...
In a doc, (Office 2003, Word, XP (toolsoptions"All" checked visible)
there
is a square black dot to the left of the text boundary -- one for each
paragraph with heading styles 1-4. No dot for headings 5- and lower. I
know I've seen something about the dot somewhere, but can't find it.
What's
the dot about and what, if anything, does it do?

Ridge