[Solved] Permanently Deleting > characters in Text

[BChristine]

Hi,
I think I have an older version of Open Office (3.3) .... I've been having trouble permanently deleting the > character on a text document. I think that may be a space modifier, I don't know. It typically appears at the beginning of a paragraph. I am able to delete them; I save it, then they re-appear when I open the document back up. My margins are very small and there's a lot of text. I think there's probably a very simple fix, I just can't figure it out
Thanks in advance.

[Bill]

Is it the > character or a bullet?

[BChristine]

Yes, it's the > character

[RoryOF]

Have you /View /non printing characters turned on?

[BChristine]

No that's off-

[RoryOF]

OK, so you are not seeing tab characters, which would show up as --> symbols.
Is the > char showing up on every line, or merely on the first line of a paragraph?

[RoryOF]

Try this: place cursor on a line with the > symbol. Select /Format /Bullets and numbering and press the Remove button. Did the > go away?

[BChristine]

YES! That worked; even after I saved it. Perfect, thank you. I'm curious as to why it did that in the 1st place....
But now it prints shaving a little - not the full 1st character - off of the left margin?

[RoryOF]

For some reason you had /Format /Bullets and Numbering selected. The character showing was (probably) a fancy >, which is one of the bullet options.

With regard to your current problem, place cursor in a paragraph and /Format /Paragraph. Then press the Indents and Spacing tab and verify that in the Indent section "Before text" and "After text" are set to 0 (zero). "First line" can be set to 0 or the "Automatic" checkbox below it checked, to give a one em indent at line start (usual in text setting).

[BChristine]

When I did that it just moved the line more to the left off the page - it was set at .30. I changed it to .32 and it moved to the right - the correct way. I'll mess around with it and see what I can do. Thanks so much for your help