(This item pertains to the check boxes on the General tab of the Setup Options dialog box. You can open it through the F5 key or through the Edit | Preferences | Setup menu option.)
The Show icon in text boxes check box allows you to determine if icons depicting the feature or dimension type should appear in text boxes and inside feature ID labels. The text boxes include feature ID, dimension info, and point info text boxes.
For information on text boxes see "Text Box Mode" in the "Editing the CAD Display" chapter.