Hidden text is a special formatting feature of Microsoft Word which allows to hide some text from the user. In translation settings, this feature is very useful because it allows to hide text from CAT tools or convert it to non-translatable tags. This is supported by the majority of CAT tools, e.g. SDL Trados Studio, memoQ, Wordfast Pro, Déjà Vu X, Memsource Cloud, etc. One interesting thing about hidden text is that you can view hidden text in Microsoft Word if you change your view settings. This article explains how to change Word view settings to hide or show hidden text.
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Word 2007 or later:
Toggle the Non-printable text button located in the Paragraph group on the Home tab. When the button is on, you will see non-printable characters like paragraph break, line break, tab, etc. In addition, you should also see hidden text (underlined with a dotted line as shown below).
If hidden text does not appear when you click the button, open Word Options dialogue by clicking Microsoft Office icon in the top-left corner and clicking Word Options button at the bottom. Select 'Display' from the list on the left, and select 'Hidden text' checkbox.
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Word 2003 or earlier:
Toggle the Non-printable characters button located on the Standard toolbar (next to the Zoom list) to display or hide non-printable characters. When the button is on, you will see non-printable characters like paragraph break, line break, tab, etc. In addition, you should also see hidden text (underlined with a dotted line as shown below).
If hidden text does not appear when you click the button, go to Tools -> Options, switch to View tab and select 'Hidden text' checkbox.
