Why all these dots instead of the spaces that were there & ¶ marks when I Reply to or Forward an email in my new Outlook in Office 2019 Pro+?

Thanks for that detailed list of steps to try, Hornblower. I’ve been putting off trying all that and have read it several times, but I just wanted to make sure that you do realize that I can easily turn the formatting marks OFF or then back ON on any email that I open and I even pinned a shortcut for doing that that appears in the line if icons at the top of all emails.

The only issue is that I can't navigate into File > Options > Mail.

Under Compose messages, select Editor Options > Display and uncheck them all and have it stick. What I mean is, then when I start creating a new email or Reply to an email, they're all shown again.

You know that, don't you?

If you do, is there still any point in my carrying out that process you laid out?

Jeff

>> is there still any point in my carrying out that process you laid out?

No. Stumbled on this Reddit thread that means the problem is much deeper that I thought and none of my suggestions are going to help.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Office365/comments/tranah/outlook_paragraph_symbol_keeps_coming_back/

You need direct Microsoft Support where they can remote into your PC. Not via any support forums. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/home/contact

I'm lost. Please don't give up on me. I'm apparently not saying things the right way. All you had to do was say "Yes, that is what I think the best process is. I did already know all those things that you said again.".

I'll take that to be what you meant and I'll do those steps. I'm still lost on what this is supposed to accomplish. You ended by just saying "When you start Outlook again, it should return to your previous profile."

What then? What do I do or am I supposed to know?

Please excuse my ignorance.

Sorry about a 2nd Reply but I just made sense of what you said with that Reddit link. It had overwhelmed me earlier. I'll read it.

Bummer. Guess I'll need to call the Microsoft Support. I did a Quick Repair and that didn't fix it. Then I did an Online Full Repair, still no luck. Then I even uninstalled and reinstalled the whole Office 2019 suite, and that didn't change anything. Is it possible that I'm dreaming, and that what I'm trying to accomplish isn't possible? It seems like it should stay set after I uncheck everything, either with an email open or not (tried both many times), but it doesn't. The next email I create has a ¶ in the body when I type anything down there. Same thing happens if I Reply to an email.
That uninstalling thing was a horror since Microsoft is slimily trying to force everyone to convert to Microsoft 365 by forcing it on me when I clicked on Office 2019 install link. It took a lot of work to figure out how to get rid of 365 and get back to my Outlook Classis 2019 and the to get Word and Excel that word standalone instead of 365 online subscription junk, which I refuse to pay for.
It oddly updated the date on the image I'm showing here, as if I only added it today. I re-installed it today.
So, I guess it's either contact that help site you gave me or give up and just learn to deal with this aggravation.