Unusual 2 dots invisible character ?

[Peterobserv]

In CC2018 Indesign, I've noticed a character that SEEMED new to me. Two dots at the beginning of a block, before the letters.

Huuuu ? Please enlighten me. See example below. When I copy . paste it in Find/replace, it reads : ^ followed by a vertical bar, on an uppercase i. Can't find what it is, or where it comes from.

[Steve Werner · Accepted solution]

I think it's a Text Anchor (type of hyperlink destination).

See this illustration from the InDesign Secrets Guide to Special Characters. On the right is what it looks like in the Story Editor.

[Barb Binder]

In case you aren't familiar with anchors, Peter, you can define a text anchor as a destination on a hyperlink. If you don't need it, you can  delete it, but if you aren't sure, just ignore it. It doesn't print.

~Barb

        

[Peterobserv]

Thanks to all

[vladan saveljic]

You can eliminate all of this special characters with find change

Find:

<feff>

Change:

Leave empty

[Luk261803986ajc]

That worked, thank you, but instead of typing <feff> in the "Find what" input field, wondering why this is not in the list of "Special characters for search" - or am I missing it?

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

Ignore my post. typed in in the wrong thread!

[Laubender]

Hi together,

this special character can be found with Text Find.

The find pattern is:

<FEFF>

 One should be careful to remove it, because <FEFF> has various purposes.

So a "Remove All" will also destroy index markers and could remove characters next to Note objects. The case with Note objects is especially intersting, because it depends on the position of a Note object if removing <FEFF> will remove a character:

Yet another purpose for that <FEFF> special character:

PDF Review: An accepted comment that will remove text will leave an <FEFF> special character.

Text Find/Change can remove that as well.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )