What does a ~$ in front of a file name in finder denote
I'm a 3 day old Mac novice so forgive my ignorance in advance. A search revealed nothing I could find of assistance.
Looking through Apps and Documents in Finder under the All My Files tab I have many items named beginning with ~$ e.g. Formal Letter 1.DOC and
~$rmal Letter 1.DOC
I can access the file Formal Letter .DOC1 but clicking on ~$rmal Letter 1.DOC results in a dialogue box stating "~$rmal Letter 1.DOC" can't be opened.
Any explanation as to what these are and assistance in "removing or hiding them" would be appreciated.
Cheers
Lance
MacBook Air, OS X Yosemite (10.10.2)