What is a Format Code?

 
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Format Code

In the context of word processing, format codes are strings of characters that are not visible in the document that tell the program how to format the characters. In Microsoft® Word you can reveal format codes by typing shift + F1.

In our example you can see that we’ve revealed the format codes, making them visible in the document. For each space it inserted dots and it is using the paragraph symbol to indicate hard returns.