Hidden characters (formatting marks) automatically appear in Outlook 2016 / 2019 for macOS
Issue: Hidden characters (formatting marks) automatically appear when you start typing a new email draft, or an email reply, using Outlook 2016 or 2019 for macOS
When carrying out Apple IT support we find that resolving this is an easy solution but very hard to find. You need to:
- Open Outlook menu (top left) > Preferences
- Switch to the Fonts sub menu
- Click each of the three Font… buttons in turn to edit your font preferences for New, Replies or Plain Text emails respectively
- In each of these Font editor sections, UNTICK the “Hidden” checkbox, if it’s enabled
What we’re doing here is telling Outlook that we do NOT want hidden characters to display by default, when we start typing a new or reply email.
The exact same preferences area allows you to change your default font size, font type and other font-related preferences when sending emails in Outlook for Mac 2016 or 2019.
This is great if you always like to write in Arial, Helvetica or some other font, aside from the default Calibri at 12pt.