Easy Ways to Get Rid of Hidden Text in Word

The rate of plagiarism is increasing alarmingly, and therefore the teachers and educational institutions are very concerned about checking the students’ papers. Therefore, some of the students use the hidden text in Word to dodge the plagiarism checker. However, it is challenging to identify them by going through them. There are some plagiarism checker tools like Copyleaks that can identify these hidden texts in Word.

They ask the students to use a plagiarism checker to scan the document before submitting their article. Undoubtedly, the teachers or professors themselves use the tool to find out the copied content present in the text.

What Is Hidden Text in Word

In Word, a feature allows the writer to show or print a document without showing them the text in Word. It does not remove a particular text when the feature is applied, but it puts in formatting marks that imply “Don’t display the text.” When a standard text has formatting marks used in between them, they are called hidden text.

The writer can choose to hide the text in a document while printing copies of it without showing them. The writers need to unhide if they want to publish. Hiding text features allows the writers to hide confidential information so that others cannot see it until they click the Hidden text Option present in the

Open Dialog Box. Then the text appears marked with dotted lines to identify the text. Though the writer must know that it is not secure, it does not let the readers see the texts that are hidden.

Though the writers initially used these features for confidential information, it has become a popular disguising plagiarism method. The student or writer can add “white” characters to avoid the thorough scan. However, one cannot easily detect this way of cheating by having a look at it.

Sometimes the writers use hidden text, changes in words, or text blocks to avoid plagiarism checkers. Since the students know about the consequences of plagiarism, they sometimes show utmost creativity to trick the tool and the teacher.

How Does One Hides Text in Word?

To hide a text in Word, the writer needs to select the part. Then they can click on the Home tab. They have to click on the Font tab at the arrow present at the group’s bottom right after that.

It leads to the opening of the Font window. They can turn on the “hide” option. All the writer needs to do is now click on OK, and the text gets hidden. The key shortcut for hiding the text is Ctrl+Shift+H.

Steps to Unhide Text in Word

Unhiding the text is equally comfortable as hiding the text. The process is just the reverse one of the hiding text. The writer can select the part and then press Ctrl+Shift+H to unhide. But since the text has disappeared, the writer needs to display all the formatting marks if they want to unhide texts.

To see all the non-printing characters, the writer needs to click on the Home tab and then select the Show/Hide option. The key shortcut for this is Ctrl+Shift+8, and by pressing these three keys, one lets the spaces, paragraph marks, and hidden texts appear on the document.

The particular hidden text appears with a dotted line. The writer can now easily select that part and use the Ctrl+Shift+H shortcut. They can also set the Font and then, from the Hidden setting can unhide the parts.

Steps to Reverse the Hidden Text in the Word

The process of reversing the hidden text in a word document is straightforward. As the text is nothing but formatted text, the writer can use the Show/Hide option and then select the hidden part, and then use the reverse process of hiding to unhide them. Hence, the process of reversing the masked text in Word is similar to that of Unhiding.

Easy Ways to Check the Hidden Text Present in a Document

When it comes to cheating, the students often show extreme creativity levels that range from letter substitution, a made-up reference to mosaic plagiarism, format modification, and insertion of hidden characters. Therefore, sometimes manual checking is not enough.

The teachers may take the help of the plagiarism checkers to check the paper. At the same time, they need to use an advanced plagiarism checker. A primitive plagiarism checker may function on the document by scanning and comparing, which does not determine the issues like format modification or white text insertions.

Many students who are well aware of the hidden text’s function and the plagiarism work can use the formatted text to cheat. Since most plagiarism checkers scan and compare word documents and find the similarity, hidden text in a document can affect the result.

As human eyes cannot detect the hidden texts, the teacher cannot identify the plagiarism. Students can trick them by claiming a plagiarised content as an original work.

To avoid this issue, the teachers and professors can use Copyleaks plagiarism checker. The plagiarism checker software is potent enough to find out the copied content present in a document. The tool can accurately find out plagiarized content hidden in the document and produce a detailed result quickly.

They can check many pages rapidly, which is helpful while checking multiple papers within a limited period. Simultaneously, Copyleaks software has some advanced AI-powered technologies that help find the hidden text and possibly manipulate the plagiarism checkers.

The system uses a txt format to find those masked texts. The system can find the white characters that the students or writers are using, probably cheating.

It identifies those parts that do not belong to the content and mark it with an error sign, which says that there are suspected hidden characters. The teacher can easily find the discrepancies using Copyleaks.

They can compare the file in txt format and the visual file in doc format. It is a way the teacher can easily find the hidden text present in the Word.