Can't Hide TOC & Index Tags in Word 97[Solved]

I have a large (250 pages plus) MS Word 97 document. It has both a table of contents and an index.

I opened it today and discovered that the index tags (the "XE" tags) and the table of content tage (the "TC" tags) are plainly visible when they should not be. The Hide/Show icon is set to off. I know this because when I toggle it, the paragraph marks and section breaks appear. When I re-toggle it, the paragraph marks and section breaks disappear - but the index tags remain visible.

When I transfer this file to another machine, it appears fine there -the tags do not show. When I transfer it back to my machine, the tags show up again. So I'm sure it's a setting in MS Word 97 on my machine that has somehow been screwed up.

It's probably something obscenely simple, but does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

Is your "view" set to normal?

No, it's set to Page Layout ... but Normal shows no difference.

Problem solved!

I went to TOOLS | OPTIONS | VIEW. "Show Hidden Text" was checked. I unchecked it and, voilÃ*, no hidden text.

I can onlyassume some internet gremlin was in my machine last night.