Command + forward delete does not work in Word

[Ben]

In Cocoa apps and most Carbon apps as well, command + forward delete
deletes the word following the insertion point. In Word, this does
nothing. Is there a way to assign this key to a shortcut to delete the
word following the insertion point?

Ben

 

[Clive Huggan]

Hello Ben,

Take a look in Word's Help for "keyboard shortcuts", then choose "Print a
list of shortcut keys". Maybe "Word Right Extend", then Delete? Sorry, have
to rush and don't have time to test. There may be a better one ­ couldn't
spot it...


Cheers,

Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is 5-11 hours different from the US and Europe, so my
follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
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[PhilD]

In Cocoa apps and most Carbon apps as well, command + forward delete
deletes the word following the insertion point. In Word, this does
nothing. Is there a way to assign this key to a shortcut to delete the
word following the insertion point?

Just to clarify, if you wanted to delete the final word "point" in the
quoted text, you want to put the cursor before the "p", then delete the
whole word?

Assuming this to be correct:

I use an iBook G4. To delete as you (appear to) want, I press fn + alt
+ back space (I think, it might be command rather than alt. I'm not at
my Mac at the moment).

Hope this helps.

PhilD

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Ben -

There must be some other issue at work. Cmd+del works exactly as you
describe on my system running OS X 10.4.4, MS Office 2004. In fact, with the
insertion point preceding the space ahead of the word to be deleted it also
does as expected & deletes the space + the word. (Whereas, if the insertion
point is directly in front of the word the space following gets deleted.

What else can you share that may be related?

Regards |:>)

 

[Elliott Roper]

In Cocoa apps and most Carbon apps as well, command + forward delete
deletes the word following the insertion point. In Word, this does
nothing. Is there a way to assign this key to a shortcut to delete the
word following the insertion point?

I think you might be in error. *Option* forward delete works in Cocoa
apps here.
And it works in Word.
On the powerbook fn backspace is forward delete, so a tangle of fingers
for alt-fn-backspace is required.

 

[Ben]

Elliott, you're correct -- I meant to say "option + forward delete."
However, this does not work in Word 2004 for me. Here's a sample
paragraph with | indicating the insertion point:

This is sample |text.

If I press option + forward delete, nothing happens. The expected
behavior is for the word "text" to be deleted and the insertion point
to stay in the same location.

Are others actually not seeing this behavior? Strange.

 

[Elliott Roper]

Elliott, you're correct -- I meant to say "option + forward delete."
However, this does not work in Word 2004 for me. Here's a sample
paragraph with | indicating the insertion point:

This is sample |text.

If I press option + forward delete, nothing happens. The expected
behavior is for the word "text" to be deleted and the insertion point
to stay in the same location.

Are others actually not seeing this behavior? Strange.

My first guess is that you have re-assigned the keyboard shortcut.
Hop into tools » customize » customize keyboard
choose any brainless command and try to assign opt-forward delete to it
as a keyboard shortcut.
Word will then tell you that it is aready assigned to...

Waitttttt!!!
(small black cloud forms overhead and rain falls)
I wonder if I have forgotten that I customised my shortcuts

Choose DeleteWord command in that panel and assign it to opt-forward
delete.
Who cares what it was before?

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Folks-

I'm jumping back in as it appears my original reply to Ben got lost
somewhere. This is what I had found to be the case on my system, and I have
*not* modified the keystrokes:

Hi Ben -

There must be some other issue at work. Cmd+del works exactly as you describe
on my system running OS X 10.4.4, MS Office 2004. In fact, with the insertion
point preceding the space ahead of the word to be deleted it also does as
expected & deletes the space + the word. (Whereas, if the insertion point is
directly in front of the word the space following gets deleted.

What else can you share that may be related?

Also, this is what Word 2003 Help has to say on the matter:

DELETE Delete one character to the left
CMD+DELETE Delete one word to the left
DEL or CLEAR Delete one character to the right
CMD+DEL Delete one word to the right

Regards |:>)

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

Also, this is what Word 2003 Help has to say on the matter:

DELETE Delete one character to the left
CMD+DELETE Delete one word to the left
DEL or CLEAR Delete one character to the right
CMD+DEL Delete one word to the right

Word 2003 (Windows) does not have a CMD key. They usually use Control key
where we use Command key, for equivalent shortcuts. I think you meant Word
2004? That's what the Help has for Keyboard shortcuts/Editing text, exactly
as above.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.

 

[CyberTaz]

Typo on my part - I meant *2004*

Sorry for the oversight! |:>)

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Are others actually not seeing this behavior? Strange.

Word 2004--on a laptop. Same behavior as CyberTaz--seems to work fine here.

Cmd-delete deletes the previous word to the left (so does opt-delete)
Fn-cmd-delete deletes the next word to the right (fn-opt-delete does
nothing)

I doublechecked in an uncustomized Word.

I did notice that if the cursor is next to punctuation (period, comma,
parens, at least), it counts the punctuation as a word and deletes that
instead. Might that be part of Ben's problem?

Ben, have you said yet whether you are on a laptop?

As Elliot said, Word calls forward delete DeleteWord. Go into Tools |
Customize Keyboard Shortcuts, select All Commands in the left column, hit
tab to select the right column, type D to jump to the Ds, and find and
select DeleteWord.

Assign it to whatever you want.

In my setup, it is assigned to Cmd-DEL, while DeleteBackWord is assigned to
cmd-delete and opt-delete. Ooh, that's not confusing at all--I guess DEL is
fn-delete on a laptop.

Daiya

 

[Elliott Roper]

I doublechecked in an uncustomized Word.

Note to self:

Don't give keyboard customization advice.

I'd forgotten how many tweaks I'd made.

Further note to self:

Backup

 

[Ben]

Thanks very much! It turns out that command-forward-delete was working,
but option-forward-delete (standard Mac OS X shortcut) was not. I was
able to fix this in the keyboard customization dialog now that I knew
it was called DeleteWord. It's quite unintuitive to call it
DeleteBackWord (as if backwards delete is a special case); it should be
DeleteForwardWord and DeletePreviousWord, in my opinion.

Thanks for the help!

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Oh, the list of unintuitive stuff in the keyboard customization dialog is
very long....exceeded only by the list of stuff that is actually
*counter*-intuitive.

Glad you sorted it out.