The gray characters are mostly the letter I in 14pt Calibri, 50% Gray shading.
The "tiny little boxes with question marks inside" represent Unicode characters not supported in the Calibri font you're using. Switching to Arial or Times New Roman shows the one in your attachment to be a Unicode box character.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Thanks Paul. If the grey characters are just normal text, why won't a bulk replace with nothing delete them?

If I highlight words containing those tiny little boxes and switch it to Times New Roman or Arial, the boxes remain. Is there a way I can delete them, or better yet, get them to display the text as they are supposed to?