Word Highlighting

[Lance777]

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) Processor: Intel I am new to the forums so here goes. When using Word 2008 i choose to select text and it is highlighted but when I click somewhere else (to release the highlighted section) the selection stays highlighted. If i push the up arrow it moves on just fine but the mouse click will not let it go it stays highlighted. What can I do?

 

[John McGhie]

It depends where "else" you click.

You need to click in the document text, but outside the selection.

If you are running "Spaces", you need to click in the Space that contains
Word, in the document text, but outside the selection

Cheers

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) Processor: Intel
I am new to the forums so here goes. When using Word 2008 i choose to select
text and it is highlighted but when I click somewhere else (to release the
highlighted section) the selection stays highlighted. If i push the up arrow
it moves on just fine but the mouse click will not let it go it stays
highlighted. What can I do?

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

 

[CyberTaz]

Not sure I fully agree with John on this one I really don't use Spaces
so I can't speak to that, but especially if Spaces isn't in use...

Based on what I've seen as regular behavior: Clicking anywhere in the
document window frame - in the selected text, in the margin, even outside
edge of the page - should cause selected body text to be deselected... Or
should at least cause a change in what is selected. The only exception is if
the document has a Header/Footer in which case a single click in the
top/bottom margin will not deselect text in the body of the document.

One possibility that comes to mind is that you have accidentally triggered
the EXT mode. It's activated by pressing the F8 key. Try pressing ESC to
toggle out of the mode. This may not be the cause, though, because the
behavior would be somewhat different than you describe.

If that doesn't correct the behavior you may have to dig a little deeper. Is
this happening in one specific document or does it happen in all -- even
newly created ones? Does the issue persist if you Quit Word then launch
again & open the same document where the behavior occurred?

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Lance777]

Bob
I tried the EXT mode and it does not help. I pressed esc and it does not allow me to deselect the highlighted portion. This happens in all documents, regardless of style chosen or exiting (and returning to the doc) . It does not do it in any other office applications only word. Any other ideas?

 

[CyberTaz]

Then try these 2 additional tests:

1- Hold the Shift key while you launch Word - do you have the same problem?

2- Log in using a different User Account. Any difference in Word there?

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[John McGhie]

Are you sure it's "HIGHLIGHTING"?

Try right-clicking the text. If "Toggle Field Codes" appears as a choice,
choose it: you will see that it's not "real text" it is generated text that
has been copied to the current location from somewhere else in the document
by a mangled field code.

Cheers

Bob
I tried the EXT mode and it does not help. I pressed esc and it does not
allow me to deselect the highlighted portion. This happens in all documents,
regardless of style chosen or exiting (and returning to the doc) . It does
not do it in any other office applications only word. Any other ideas?

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

 

[Lance777]

John McGhie
Bob Jones

Thanks for your ideas. None of them accomplished anything new. Except, if i log on as a new account the new "Word " Document does not do it. I can highlight and click anywhere just like normal. But in my account no such luck. Do you have any other ideas?

 

[CyberTaz]

Well, that "except" is exactly what we needed to know That tells you
that your Normal.dotm template is damaged or corrupt.

Follow the instructions on this web page for "Testing the Normal template"
as they pertain to Word 2008. If you have any amount of customizations that
you want to recover make sure to rename or move the current Normal.dotm
rather than deleting it. Make sure to Quit all Office apps before starting:

http://word.mvps.org/mac/MacWordNormal.html

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Lance777]

Bob,
I tried that and it does not work. THe text I have selected stays selected even if I click my mouse on it. However if I push the arrow up or down keys it relocates my cursor at the top or bottom. Should I do a reinstall? UGH

 

[John McGhie]

No. A re-install won't touch this issue. The files that have the problem
are not part of the CD, so at best it will waste your time. More likely, it
will make the problem worse. You have already proved that there's nothing
wrong with the installation: it works fine in a new account.

Try the following: perform this procedure exactly:

This is the "Scorched Earth" fix. Whatever it is, if it's caused by Office,
this should fix it.

1) Track down all instances of pre-2008 Normal template on your computer,
and drag them to your desktop. The file is called simply "Normal" and has
no extension.

2) Find and delete the file Normal.dotm. Unless you have moved it, it
should be in
/Users/~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/User Templates/

3) If the following files exist, Remove or rename them:

~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Word Settings (10)

~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Word Settings (11)

4) User/Library/Preferences/com.Microsoft.Word.plist

5) User/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008 (the whole folder!)

6) Then Repair Permissions with Disk Utility.

7) Then re-install or reapply the 12.2.0 and 12.2.3 updates, in that order.

8) Repair permissions again, and it should work.

Be thorough with this, if you leave any of the old files behind Word 2008
will find them and won't replace them. Do it right and Word will construct
a new, clean, set of preferences and everything should now work.

Let us know how you get on.

Cheers

Bob,
I tried that and it does not work. THe text I have selected stays selected
even if I click my mouse on it. However if I push the arrow up or down keys
it relocates my cursor at the top or bottom. Should I do a reinstall? UGH

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

 

[Lance777]

Bob I have carefully tried the idea of a scorched earth and it did not work. I am running 12.2.4 so the other 12.2.0 would not install. Any other ideas?

 

[CyberTaz]

OK, if John's "scorched earth" procedure changed nothing that suggests [to
me] 2 remaining possibilities: One, no offense , is that you didn't
follow his instructions precisely, the other is that you have something
installed in that account that is interfering with Word's access to the
keyboard... Some type of utility, widget, haxie, whatever. Let's assume that
the first is out of the question ;-}

Log out, then - while holding the Shift key - log in to the same account
where you're having the problem. Launch Word & see if the behavior stops. If
so it means that you have some process set to launch on login that is
causing the problem. Access your account in System Preferences to see what
appears in your list of Login items. If you compare that to what the Login
items are for the other account it may help you identify the culprit more
quickly. Otherwise it's a matter of trial & error to isolate & disable it.

Otherwise I'm about out of suggestions :-( See how you make out, but it may
next be more prudent to move to the new account. Let us know what happens.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Lance777]

Thank you this worked. I eliminated all my start up features one by one (whew) . Found out the little program called "right zoom" did it every time. We are settled and all is well in the world of "WORD" THank you again Lance

 

[John McGhie]

Right Zoom? Many, many thanks for hanging with this problem long enough to
find it.

Oh, right: Right Zoom is bought to you by the company that offers all the
best credit-card and bank-account and password stealers in the business.

Warning: DON'T click this link unless you have commercial-grade MALWARE
PROTECTION on your Mac. If your shields are not up before you go here, you
won't have any one click later!

http://www.blazingtools.com/downloads.html

We'll add that to the list of "Toxic Haxies" that disrupts Word

Many thanks!

Thank you this worked. I eliminated all my start up features one by one
(whew) . Found out the little program called "right zoom" did it every time.
We are settled and all is well in the world of "WORD" THank you again Lance

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

 

[Phillip Jones, C.E.T.]

If that's the case why did you make it click-able.

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Phillip:

I didn't. I sent it in Plain Text. Your newsreader made it clickable

Cheers

If that's the case why did you make it click-able.

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

 

[Phillip Jones, C.E.T.]

but if you had put at in place of the @ symbol my reader wouldn't have ;-)