Altered highlight behavior after XP upgrade

[Lee]

Office XP Word:

Prior to upgrading from XP Home to XP office, I could always easily place
the cursor at the end of a sentence by clicking anywhere in the empty space
to the right of the end of the sentence. Now when I click there, the entire
line is highlighted, which is inconvenient. Is there an option somewhere
that will set that behavior the way I want it?

Thanks very much.

 

[TF]

Lee

XP Home is an OS and XP Office is an application. You cannot have upgraded
from XP Home to XP Office. Please explain what was upgraded to cause this
problem.

--
Terry Farrell - Word MVP
http://www.mvps.org/word/

: Office XP Word:
:
: Prior to upgrading from XP Home to XP office, I could always easily place
: the cursor at the end of a sentence by clicking anywhere in the empty
space
: to the right of the end of the sentence. Now when I click there, the
entire
: line is highlighted, which is inconvenient. Is there an option somewhere
: that will set that behavior the way I want it?
:
: Thanks very much.
:
:

 

[Fay Yocum]

I think you my have pressed the F8 key or double clicked on the EXT area of
the status bar. To turn that off double click on the EXT area of the status
bar. Hope this does the trick.

Fay

 

[Lee]

Whoops...my sloppiness: I meant from XP Home to XP Professional.

 

[Lee]

Thought of that, but EXT is greyed out and EXT behavior is not occurring.
This is a little different, and does not involve "From/To" highlighting, but
just a full (single) line if I click in the area beyond the line.

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP - DELETE UPPERCASE CHARACT]

Hi Lee,

Using XP Professional and Word 2003, a single click places the selection at
the end of the line. Double clicking selects the last word on the line, or
the period if the line ends in a period or the paragraph mark ¶ if the line
ends with that.

Are you sure you are not double clicking by accident.

--
Please post any further questions or followup to the newsgroups for the
benefit of others who may be interested. Unsolicited questions forwarded
directly to me will only be answered on a paid consulting basis.
Hope this helps
Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[Lee]

Are you sure you are not double clicking by accident.

Quite sure, Doug: I'm a novelist and have been using Word since it first hit
the market. This is genuinely anomalous behavior. It's possible there's
something off about the mouse's interaction with the O/S since I upgraded to
XP Pro, but I'm not accidentally double-clicking.

 

[TF]

Lee

The only time I have ever seen this behaviour is when each line of text is
an individual graphic or an individual field. Otherwise I cannot explain it.
You can easily test if it is a field by toggling field codes on. If it is a
graphic, double-clicking should open the Format Graphic dialog.

Terry

: Whoops...my sloppiness: I meant from XP Home to XP Professional.
:
:
: "TF" <terryfarrell%40%6d%73%6e%2ecom> wrote in message Lee
: >
: > XP Home is an OS and XP Office is an application. You cannot have
upgraded
: > from XP Home to XP Office. Please explain what was upgraded to cause
this
: > problem.
:
:
:

 

[Lee]

Good thought, Terry, but no dice. Happens in every one of my Word docs, on
any line, and they're all just vanilla text.

I'm starting to notice some other anomalous kinds of highlighting behavior
in other apps, but not with enough precision yet to be able to say exactly
what; relates to highlighting ahead/behind a point. Starting to wonder if it
isn't a mouse setting of some kind.

 

[TF]

Lee

If you get to the bottom of this, I'd certainly be interested to know what
is causing it. If this was my problem, I'd probably check for updates for
the printer, graphics and mouse drivers. Even if they haven't been updated,
I'd reinstall them all.

Terry

: Good thought, Terry, but no dice. Happens in every one of my Word docs, on
: any line, and they're all just vanilla text.
:
: I'm starting to notice some other anomalous kinds of highlighting behavior
: in other apps, but not with enough precision yet to be able to say exactly
: what; relates to highlighting ahead/behind a point. Starting to wonder if
it
: isn't a mouse setting of some kind.
:
: "TF" <terryfarrell%40%6d%73%6e%2ecom> wrote in message
: : > Lee
: >
: > The only time I have ever seen this behaviour is when each line of text
is
: > an individual graphic or an individual field. Otherwise I cannot explain
: it.
: > You can easily test if it is a field by toggling field codes on. If it
is
: a
: > graphic, double-clicking should open the Format Graphic dialog.
:
:

 

[Lee]

what
is causing it. If this was my problem, I'd probably check for updates for
the printer, graphics and mouse drivers. Even if they haven't been updated,
I'd reinstall them all.

Installed latest drivers for all three (HP 940C, NVidia MX400, Logitech
Moueman Trakball). That ain't it!

 

[Lee]

Two clues:

Just discovered that clicking END when the cursor is on a character takes
the cursor to the end of the line, as normal, but then clicking left-arrow
does not move the cursor to the left. It's stuck out at the end of the line,
to the right of the final space.

When the cursor is stuck out there like that, I can Shift-Click the left
arrow and the entire word to the left is selected, as normal, and clicking
an arrow after that moves the cursor as normal. When the cursor is stuck out
there I can also up- or down-arrow and move to the line above or below, and
when that happens, the cursor does not end up past the space character at
the end of the line, but to the left of it, right after the last character
of the word. In the past, moving up or down has always put the cursor after
the final space on the line.

This has to somehow be related to the original problem I posted. There is
something funny about the ends of these lines. I also discovered that if I
click on that last space, slightly to the right of the center of it, I get a
blinking cursor to the right of the space and normal behavior (no
highlighting). But if I click very slightly to the right of that point, the
whole line gets highlighted. As per my original post, this is not normal.

The second clue: I have a macro that transposes two characters. For example,
if I put the cursor to the left of the 'h' in 'htat,' it transposes the h
and the t and results in 'that.' I've used this macro countless thousands of
times for many years. Now, I get an error message: "The EditCut command is
not available because no text is selected." I get this message even if I
select text. Got a feeling this is related to the original problem as well.
Incidentally, I could have sworn that macro was working after the XP Pro
upgrade,but it isn't working now.

Hope this triggers a brainstorm...

 

[TF]

Lee

Sorry, but I'm out of ideas.

Terry

:
: "TF" <terryfarrell%40%6d%73%6e%2ecom> wrote in message
: > > If you get to the bottom of this, I'd certainly be interested to know
: what
: > is causing it. If this was my problem, I'd probably check for updates
for
: > the printer, graphics and mouse drivers. Even if they haven't been
: updated,
: > I'd reinstall them all.
:
: Installed latest drivers for all three (HP 940C, NVidia MX400, Logitech
: Moueman Trakball). That ain't it!
:
:

 

[TF]

Lee

Now that is a symptom that the Control Key may be sticky on your keyboard.
Borrow another keyboard and try that.

Terry

: Two clues:
:
: Just discovered that clicking END when the cursor is on a character takes
: the cursor to the end of the line, as normal, but then clicking left-arrow
: does not move the cursor to the left. It's stuck out at the end of the
line,
: to the right of the final space.
:
: When the cursor is stuck out there like that, I can Shift-Click the left
: arrow and the entire word to the left is selected, as normal, and clicking
: an arrow after that moves the cursor as normal. When the cursor is stuck
out
: there I can also up- or down-arrow and move to the line above or below,
and
: when that happens, the cursor does not end up past the space character at
: the end of the line, but to the left of it, right after the last character
: of the word. In the past, moving up or down has always put the cursor
after
: the final space on the line.
:
: This has to somehow be related to the original problem I posted. There is
: something funny about the ends of these lines. I also discovered that if I
: click on that last space, slightly to the right of the center of it, I get
a
: blinking cursor to the right of the space and normal behavior (no
: highlighting). But if I click very slightly to the right of that point,
the
: whole line gets highlighted. As per my original post, this is not normal.
:
: The second clue: I have a macro that transposes two characters. For
example,
: if I put the cursor to the left of the 'h' in 'htat,' it transposes the h
: and the t and results in 'that.' I've used this macro countless thousands
of
: times for many years. Now, I get an error message: "The EditCut command is
: not available because no text is selected." I get this message even if I
: select text. Got a feeling this is related to the original problem as
well.
: Incidentally, I could have sworn that macro was working after the XP Pro
: upgrade,but it isn't working now.
:
: Hope this triggers a brainstorm...
:
:

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Do you have nonprinting characters displayed? I would advise that as a first
step in any sort of troubleshooting, so you can see what you're actually
clicking on.

 

[Lee]

Now that is a symptom that the Control Key may be sticky on your keyboard.

Borrow another keyboard and try that.

I will, and a creative thought, but given the many thousands of characters I
enter every day, and the fact that not once does any of them get treated as
a Ctrl character, it doesn't sound likely.

 

[Lee]

Do you have nonprinting characters displayed? I would advise that as a first
step in any sort of troubleshooting, so you can see what you're actually
clicking on.

Good idea, Suzanne, but I did display them all.

Also noticed something new: When I click HOME to get the cursor to the
begining of a line and then start hitting right arrows immediately, the
cursor gets stuck there. If I wait a second after hitting HOME, right arrow
will move the cursor as normal. (This is the LEFT end of the line now, which
is different from what I said before.)

Curioser and curioser...

 

[Klaus Linke]

Hi Lee,

But if I click very slightly to the right of that point, the whole line
gets highlighted. As per my original post, this is not normal.

Well, I thought it was normal in Word2002.
At least, it happens for me too (and only in Word2002, not in older versions
or Word2003).
I'm not aware of any Option settings, so I assumed that it's by
(questionable) design in Word2002.

The second clue: I have a macro that transposes two characters.
For example, if I put the cursor to the left of the 'h' in 'htat,' it
transposes the h and the t and results in 'that.' I've used this macro
countless thousands of times for many years. Now, I get an error
message: "The EditCut command is not available because no text
is selected."

If you post the macro code, I'm sure somebody might test it.
Though a new thread in a VBA group might be better.

 

[Klaus Linke]

Well, I thought it was normal in Word2002.

To clarify: If we're talking about the same thing, it's the same as when you
click in the left margin in any version of Word.
In Word2002, the line is also selected if you click to the right of the text
(even a little bit to the right... not only in the right margin).

Klaus

 

[TF]

Lee

This sounds more and more like a graphics driver conflict now. Try
downloading the newest CERTIFIED (WHQL) driver and installing it.

Terry

:
: : > Do you have nonprinting characters displayed? I would advise that as a
: first
: > step in any sort of troubleshooting, so you can see what you're actually
: > clicking on.
:
: Good idea, Suzanne, but I did display them all.
:
: Also noticed something new: When I click HOME to get the cursor to the
: begining of a line and then start hitting right arrows immediately, the
: cursor gets stuck there. If I wait a second after hitting HOME, right
arrow
: will move the cursor as normal. (This is the LEFT end of the line now,
which
: is different from what I said before.)
:
: Curioser and curioser...
:
: