Pressing the return key creates an asterisk

Hello,

I was typing using the TextEdit application in Tiger (10.4.6) and I noticed that everytime I pressed the return key an asterisk would be created at the start of the line.

Why does this happen?

I checked through all the preferences of TextEdit and could not find any setting that would turn the asterisk off. Now the strange thing that has happened is I guessed that it probably had something to do with the international settings in Tiger and so I went to the international settings and tried clicking a few buttons there. But at first nothing happened even after a reboot. Then after opening up and closing TextEdit a few times, suddenly the problem is fixed - I have no idea how I fixed it. Now when I hit the return key there is no asterisk. And so the problem is solved but I would still like to ask anyone on this forum why this may have occured in the first place and what setting I must have accidently touched that causes a return key to place an asterisk. I do have someone else using my computer from time to time and maybe that person changed my settings somehow (I may have forgotten to log off). ANd so for future reference why would have this happened?

Here are the settings I use in the "Input" menu of the international system preference:


Palette:
Character Palette

Input Method:
US Keyboard (Roman)


Here are two other related questions:

For the Input type (in the Input Menu) should I be selecting the Character Palette or the Keyboard Viewer Palette? What is the most standard?

For the Keyboard (in the Input Menu) should I be selecting the US Keyboard (Roman) or the US Keyboard Extended (Unicode) ? What is the most standard?


Thank you for any suggestions,