Access changes last name of TATH to THAT!!??

[JimBurke via AccessMonster.com]

This is bizarre. I have a user in my DB whose last name is TATH. After typing
that in, Access changes it to THAT. If I type any other letters along with it
(TATH2, STATH, etc) it leaves it as I type it, but when I use TATH it
converts it to THAT!!! Any ideas why this would happen? Every other name is
fine, it's just that one name it does that with. Quite strange. It's like
it's using a spellcheck and converting the name to a known word automatically.

 

[John Spencer]

That is exactly what is happening.

On the control where the user is entering the last name, set the control's
Allow Autocorrect property to NO.

Many years ago, I had a similar problem with a password entry control. One
user could not login due to bad password. It turned out that the password was
a deliberately misspelled word and it was getting "fixed" by the Autocorrect
function. After quite a bit of investigation, I found the problem and turned
it off for the control and that fixed the problem.

John Spencer
Access MVP 2002-2005, 2007-2010
The Hilltop Institute
University of Maryland Baltimore County

 

[JimBurke via AccessMonster.com]

Turns out it also does it if I type other things in like soem, thsi, etc. So
the only thing that makes sense is that a spellchecker is automatically being
invoked. There is no prompting or dialog presented, it just changes it
automatically. Any idea why this would happen, and how I can turn it off? My
internet searches have only shown me things that will invoke the spellchecker
via code, haven't been able to find anything about how an automatic
spellcheck is turned on or off. There is a Tools, Spelling option, but it has
no options, it just seems to invoke a spellchecker, not turn it on or off.

 

[JimBurke via AccessMonster.com]

Thanks, John. I found the solution before I saw your reply. Initially I was
worried that something in my app was really screwed up. Didn't even know that
option existed.

 

[David W. Fenton]

Many years ago, I had a similar problem with a password entry
control. One user could not login due to bad password. It turned
out that the password was a deliberately misspelled word and it
was getting "fixed" by the Autocorrect function. After quite a
bit of investigation, I found the problem and turned it off for
the control and that fixed the problem.

I don't know why Access doesn't ship with Autocorrect OFF for all
controls. Certainly there is no reason whatsoever that a combo box
should even *have* an Autocorrect property. Years ago I had an app
with "Cafe" in the name that the user was typing into the combo box,
and it kept returnint NOT A VALID VALUE error, even though you could
see it right there in the combo box itself. Turns out Autocorrect
was changing "Cafe" to "Café", which was not in the list.

This just shows that somebody at Microsoft is really a moron, since
it overrides the entire function of a combo box, which is to choose
a predefined value that is guaranteed to be valid. The Autocorrect
gets in between the user input and the carefully chosen control that
limits user entry, and takes what the user enters and changes it to
something else.

This is so stupid as to be unimaginable to me that it's still the
default configuration 15 years after it was first implemented.

 

[JimBurke via AccessMonster.com]

Ideally it seems like what they should have is an autocorrect property for
forms and controls (defaulting to False). I don't see a need to have an
application-wide setting. Well, it is what it is I guess. Sure had me
scratching my head for a few minutes.

 

[David C. Holley]

I just honestly detest it. There is a word that I type often in MS Word
which I have to fight with like a baby lamb in a lion's mouth to have Word
ignore it. I've tried every thing short of Open Office.

 

[David W. Fenton]

I just honestly detest it. There is a word that I type often in MS
Word which I have to fight with like a baby lamb in a lion's mouth
to have Word ignore it. I've tried every thing short of Open
Office.

You realize that once it makes the change you can hit Ctrl-Z to undo
it, right? That's particularly convenient if 99% of Autocorrect is
useful and there's only the occasional item that is annoying.

 

[David W. Fenton]

Ideally it seems like what they should have is an autocorrect
property for forms and controls (defaulting to False). I don't see
a need to have an application-wide setting. Well, it is what it is
I guess. Sure had me scratching my head for a few minutes.

In your Access installation, you can, in fact, turn it off by simply
unchecking all the options in the Tools | Autocorrect Options
dialog. I think that should be off by default, myself.

If you set up template forms in your database, you can set the
Autocorrect to off for all your control types and all new forms in
that database will inherit the settings.