How to Print Hidden Text in MS Word on Windows PC

Lately, a few users complained of being not able to print hidden text in MS word on their Windows PCs. In this guide, we will discuss ways to modify Word settings so that you can easily print anything by staying on the core app itself.

MS word is no doubt one of the best platforms to write anything upon. However, when it comes to printing documents, we often convert the doc file to pdf. We do so not because MS word lacks anything but rather due to some abrupt changes in the document while printing.

The scenario may vary from person to person. Some users like to print all they can view on their current file, while others simply don’t. Let’s see how to configure MS Word to print or not-print hidden text on Windows 11/10 –

Print Hidden Text in MS Word On Windows PC

Here’s how to print all that you can view on MS Word including hidden text or content –

Press Win + S to invoke the Search window.
Type “Word” and double-click on the top result.
When MS Word opens up on your computer, go to the File tab.
Click Options > Display.
Head over to the printing section and tick the checkbox – Print Hidden Text.

Hit OK to save the recently made changes.

Now, try printing any document and you can find the hidden text/content being printed as well.

Note: You may undo the above setting if you no longer want to print any hidden text/content.

How to hide Text in MS Word on Windows PC

In case you have some confidential text/paragraph that you don’t wish to print, use these steps to hide them first –

Open the relevant doc file in MS Word.
Select the texts or paragraphs that you don’t wish to print.
Use the “Ctrl + D” shortcut to launch the Font window.
Under the Effects section, mark the checkbox left of “Hidden“, and hit OK.

The selected paragraphs become hidden and you won’t be able to see them.

Now that you have made the relevant section “hidden”, undo the changes that you have performed in the above section. After doing this, you may print any documents without worrying about hidden paragraphs appearing on the printed file.

Unhide Hidden Text in MS Word on Windows 10

If you want to unhide any paragraphs that were earlier hidden, follow the below guideline –

Open MS Word containing hidden content.
Press the “Ctrl + shift + *” shortcut key using your keyboard.
By doing so, you may now see the hidden texts/paragraphs with some unknown symbol.
You can hide those texts or paragraphs again by selecting the relevant section and pressing the shortcut “Ctrl + shift + *“.

How to permanently unhide hidden texts in MS Word

Here’s how to perform this task –

Open the document containing hidden paragraphs.
Go to File > Options > Display.
Under the “Always shows these formatting marks on the screen” section, mark the checkbox – Hidden text.