abbreviations

b0nkrates 

Even though by default, XE fields are formatted as hidden text, it is not possible to turn off their display and if you go to the Backstage Print view, you will see that the XE fields are not visible and will not print.

While I don't really recommend it, if you really want to hide them, you could use a macro containing the following code that will format the font used for them with the colour white and then uses an Advance field to move the following text to the left so that the space occupied by the XE field is "overwritten" by the following text.

(You might ask why I developed the code?  It was developed in response to a user betting me that I could not hide XE fields.  The user in question welshed on the bet)

' Macro created 21 March 1999 by Doug Robbins to hide XE fields
'
Dim axe As Field
For Each axe In ActiveDocument.Fields
    axe.Select
    If Mid(Selection.Text, 3, 2) = "XE" Then
        RangeStart = Selection.Information(wdHorizontalPositionRelativeToPage)
        Selection.Collapse Direction:=wdCollapseEnd
        RangeEnd = Selection.Information(wdHorizontalPositionRelativeToPage)
        RangeLength = RangeEnd - RangeStart
        axe.Select
        Selection.Font.ColorIndex = wdWhite
        Selection.Collapse Direction:=wdCollapseEnd
        Selection.Fields.Add Range:=Selection.Range, Type:=wdFieldEmpty, Text:= _
        "ADVANCE \l " & RangeLength & """, PreserveFormatting:=False"
    End If
    Next axe