How to hide or unhide selected text in message body?

Outlook enables you to hide selected text in the message body, which can be useful for maintaining placeholders, hiding drafting notes, or preparing emails where not all content should be immediately visible. Hidden text will not appear in the printed version or regular reading mode unless show/hide formatting is enabled.

To quickly hide a portion of text while you are editing a message, follow these steps:

1. Within the message body of your new, reply, or forwarded email, highlight or select the text that you wish to hide. You can select a single word, a sentence, or any block of text.

2. On the Format Text tab in the ribbon, look for the Font group and click the small arrow icon (known as the dialog launcher) at the bottom-right corner to open the Font dialog box.
Tip: Alternatively, press Ctrl + D on your keyboard to quickly access the Font dialog.

3. In the opening Font dialog box (make sure the Font tab is active), go to the Effects section and check (tick) the Hidden option. Then click OK to confirm your changes.

As soon as you apply this setting, the selected text will disappear from your message body. Please note, this only makes the text invisible; it is not deleted. The hidden content can still be recovered and shown again at any time. Be mindful that if you send the message with hidden text, the recipients will normally not see it, unless they purposely enable formatting marks or hidden text in their mail client.

Additional tips:

• If you accidentally hide text, you can immediately use the Undo feature (Ctrl + Z) to reverse the action.
• Hiding text can be used as a simple way to maintain notes in template drafts or to prepare multi-version content in a single message before finalizing the visible parts.
• Remember that copy-pasting the message body into certain non-Outlook tools may preserve hidden text typesetting, so always double-check before sharing content externally.

If you want to make hidden text visible again, you need to disable the "Hidden" formatting. This is helpful when you want to reveal text that was previously concealed for drafting, review, or privacy purposes.

To display specific hidden text in the message body, proceed as follows:

1. On the Format Text tab, locate the Paragraph group, then click the Show/Hide Editing Marks button . This will make all paragraph marks and formatting symbols—such as spaces, tabs, and hidden text—visible in your message.
Tip: The keyboard shortcut Ctrl + * (Ctrl + Shift + 8 on most keyboards) can also be used to toggle this feature on or off.

2. Once formatting marks are shown, any hidden text will appear in the message body with a dotted underline. Click and drag to select the hidden text that you want to reveal.

3. Go to the Format Text tab, and open the Font dialog box by clicking the anchor in the Font group, or by pressing Ctrl + D on your keyboard.

4. In the Font dialog box, on the Font tab, locate the Hidden option in the Effects section and clear (untick) the checkbox. Click OK to make your adjustment.

The previously hidden text will now appear normally within your message body. You may want to hide formatting symbols and paragraph marks again for a cleaner editing view. To do this, simply click the Show/Hide Editing Marks button on the Format Text tab, or press Ctrl + Shift + 8 again.

Precautions and practical notes:

• If multiple hidden segments are spread throughout your message, you will need to repeat these unhide steps for each portion separately, unless you want to display all hidden text at once (see the section below).
• If the "Show/Hide Editing Marks" option is disabled, hidden text remains invisible in both compose and reading views.
• Be aware that if you reply to or forward an email containing hidden text, the hidden formatting is preserved unless you choose to unhide it.

If your email contains multiple hidden text elements and you wish to restore all of them to visible format in one operation, Outlook enables you to do this without having to select each hidden segment individually. This is particularly useful for finalizing drafts or reusing template messages where placeholder content needs to become visible across the entire message.

Here is how to unhide all hidden text at once:

1. Click anywhere within the message body, then press Ctrl + A to select the entire contents of your message body.

2. On the Format Text tab, click the anchor in the Font group at the bottom-right. Alternatively, you can use the shortcut Ctrl + D. This opens the Font dialog covering all selected text.

3. Make sure you are on the Font tab, then locate the Hidden checkbox in the Effects section. Remove the tick if it is present. Click OK to apply your changes.

All hidden text within the current message body will now become visible.

Troubleshooting tips:

• If some hidden text still does not appear, double-check that you have actually selected the entire message body before opening the Font dialog.
• If the "Hidden" option appears grayed out, make sure your selection includes text formatted as "hidden"; otherwise, Outlook may not allow you to change the setting.
• If you are working with formatted signatures or embedded objects, their formatting may need separate handling.

Summary suggestions: Using the hidden text feature in Outlook is a practical way to manage revisions, internal notes, placeholder text, or sensitive information in your email messages. Always remember to unhide important information before sending final emails to avoid confusion for recipients.