Word: Ghost text, keyboard, text manipulation

[PR]

I use Word a lot and recently I've experienced two things:

1. Twice the keyboard has stopped working (laptop, Dell Vostro 1500). The
mouse still works fine, so I am able to close out safely and fix it with a
restart.

2. With growing frequency, it happens that when i manipulate text, either
deleting a line, or highlighting it and moving it, the original text stays
where it is. If I move text, the text appears where I move it, but the first
text also stays where it originally was. This is not an instance of
copy-and-pasting, although it resembles it. When I move the cursor over this
"ghost text", the cursor doesn't see it (it won't highlight it and acts as if
the line contains no text). When I put the cursor in front of or near the
ghost text and hit enter or space, it disappears.

Sometimes if I delete a line (and I'm talking highlight a line and then hit
delete), it will disappear but take the next line with it. When I bring the
cursor to that line and hit space, the text I didn't want deleted reappears,
as if it had been hiding, but brought back into view with the action of the
keyboard.

Both problems began on the same day. It hasn't resulted in any data loss,
but it does worry me.

What I've considered doing: Reinstalling Word. I'd really not like to,
though, since I have so many personal preferences already saved in Word
(spelling preferences, auto-correct, etc). But if this sounds like it could
ultimately cause more damage, then I'd happily do it--if it seems like a fix.

Thanks for any advice.

PR

 

[Peter T. Daniels]

Sounds like a hardware problem. Did someone spill coffee on the
keyboard? Did someone drop the unit?

 

[Gordon Bentley-Mix on news.microsoft.com]

I suspect a hardware problem is behind this behaviour - especially since the
keyboard has stopped working. Accordingly, reinstalling Word probably won't
have much effect. I would suggest contacting Dell support in the first
instance to rule out any hardware defects before moving into software.

Note that you can preserve many of your customisations by creating a copy of
the Normal template and "restoring" it after reinstalling Word.
--
Cheers!

Gordon Bentley-Mix
Word MVP

Please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup.

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[PR]

Thanks much, Gordon. If an agonizing two hours on the phone with Dell is what
it will take, I must do it.

Best,

PR