problem with word professional 2003 and the backspace key

eoinf

I have an annoying problem with word. when i highlight text and press the backspace button the text doesnt go away similarly when i highlight text and try and type over it it still remains. if i try and paste other text over it it wont replace it. it just places the text in front of the selected text. its rather annoying

any suggestions

cheers

Eoin F

Capt'n Midnight

Try the insert key.

If it's not that simple it's another reason to use the free, open source alternative of www.openoffice.org instead.

try www.annoyances.org

also make sure you have fast save OFF and create backup copy on and also remember it doesn't autosave - you have to press CTRL-S every so often to get a full save.

eoinf

its not the insert key and i fail to see why after forking out on the full version that i should finally revert to using the free and therefore very basic open version.

anyone else

sceptre

Tools, Options, Edit tab, make sure the "Typing replaces selection" tick box is ticked.

"free therefore basic" isn't necessarily a logical statement (especially as it's not a free version of MS Office made by MS, it's a free version of something else made by someone else) but I've other fish to fry so I'll wait to see if your problem is solved (as it should be if you tick the above box).

eoinf

in my most sarcastic tone of voice "all hail your superior knowledge"

thank you

sceptre

eoinf wrote:

in my most sarcastic tone of voice "all hail your superior knowledge"

I heart sarcasm

thank you

Any time (I'm assuming it worked).

eoinf

it only temperarily fixed the problem. I keep having to tick the box everytime I open word it doesnt seem to save the setting.

sceptre wrote:

I heart sarcasm

Heart! thats a new verb for me.

sceptre

Ah, all those kewel IRC kiddies are typing this I whatever all the time. Only noticed when they started using it here, thought it was some kind of ice cream cone before I realised what it was. And there's that I Heart Huckabees movie out soon, though I'm fecked if I know what a huckabee is either. As I approach 30, perhaps I'm getting old.

eoinf

dont mean to be cruel but i think im even more confused by that post but cheers for the resolution to my problem anyway

Capt'n Midnight

eoinf wrote:

it only temperarily fixed the problem. I keep having to tick the box everytime I open word it doesnt seem to save the setting.

I really hate inheritable settings in microsoft office, or in other words uninstalling and reinstalling office WON'T fix configuration settings in so many cases. /RANT

Round up the usual suspects
search and destroy NORMAL.DOT in case the settings were stored in it.
the open word without a document - it will create a new template.
turn off macros as the setting could be in the document
there are switches to start winword.exe in it's safe mode too /A or -A can't remember. try logging on as a different user to rule out the user profile ( yeah I hate stupid stuff like that, but I've had to nuke profiles before to fix office/outlook problems ) - http://officeupdate.microsoft.com if you have broadband

TBH: you can get a long file name extension for Word 95, and the file formats are the same since word 97 and I've gotten for long enough by using software that was thrown together from bits written by people in their spare time and used it to open so many corrupt Excel docs that I can't understand how microsoft justify the price. Disable features not supported by word 97 is the first thing I do on later versions ..

The other big difference between free software and expensive software is the support offered or so the software vendors would like us to believe !

seamus

If Cap'n Midnight's solution doesn't work (and I'd be surprised if it didn't*), are you using any other programs that are integrated with Word, or that allow you to "export" data to Word? They could be resetting this.

*I had a user the other day, every time she's hit the save button, hit Ctrl + S, or go File -> Save, it would tell her, "This macro cannot be found or has been disabled because of your security settings". Found and deleted normal.dot. All good again. :rolleyes:

sceptre

Nuking normal.dot may well solve the problem properly (at least we know where the problem itself lies) - your current normal.dot may be set to read only or summat. Or just slightly corrupt (causing the problem in the first place). DO a search for the normal.dot file and delete all of them, open Word, and you've got a new one. If you've a few users on your machine it might be the workgroup profile but let's assume it isn't unless we have to.

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

TBH: you can get a long file name extension for Word 95

I'd forgotten all about that. Quite a few years ago for reasons I can't quite remember I had to hobble together a solution using that and long filename support for OS/2 on an old Novell 3.12 server. A few months later I got to throw that old 286 server into a tip though so I felt better.