Partial answer: when you describe with dots replacing spaces and ¶ signs indicating ends of paragraphs, you're describing what you see when you activate "Show … formatting symbols". Don't know about 2013, but in 2010 the keyboard shortcut is Ctrl + 8. It's a toggle, so each time you press Ctrl + 8 the symbols either appear or disappear. I suspect that "top of form", similarly, is just Word displaying some information about the document you're not used to seeing.