Nonnie, I don't have MS Publisher, but I do have MS Word, and I think I can explain about the dots and backward P.

Look on the tool bar at the top of the screen. Do you see an icon for a backward P? If so, just click on it (once), and the dots and P's should disappear. Click again, and you'll see them (it's a toggle). The dots show you how many spaces are between the words (if there are two dots together, that means you've got a double space between the words; this helps you find it more easily). The backward P's indicate the return at the end of a paragraph (you should see another one at the left margin if you've skipped a line between paragraphs). It's a useful little gadget! It doesn't change anything except the view on the screen.

As for the footer problem, here's how to fix it in Word (not sure if it's the same in Publisher, but worth a try): on the toolbar, click on View and then Header and Footer. Then click on Page Setup (the icon shows an open book). For Section Start, choose "Continuous." I think that will give you continuous page numbering. On that screen, you can also select other choices for the way you want headers and footers to appear.

I'm a little rusty on this; hope my advice is correct.

Sue