Thanks Stefan, I'll give the Alt-key approach a try. Since the problem only occurs from time to time, it may take a while to verify its effectiveness.

In answer to your questions:

When my problem turns up, the indent indicator stays put after I lift the left mouse button. If I left-click on the indent indicator again, or left-click within the selected paragraph, sometimes it will jump back to the left margin, but not always.

I've had most non-printing marks--including the paragraph mark--turned on via Word Options through out this venture, so bad aim doesn't seem to be part of if. (Before MS bought Word, I was an ardent Wordperfect user. Wordperfect had a mode where all formatting marks were revealed, which was invaluable for even slightly-complicated documents. One reason I resisted switching to Word when my entire office did was its lack of that feature.)

I'll let you know in a week or so if using Alt fixes the problem.