Problem tabbing to enter data in table

[srdiamond]

This sounds like a hardware problem but it is a Word problem experienced in
connection with Tables:

When entering data into a table in Microsoft Word 2003, using the tab key to
navigate from cell to cell, if I don't press the tab key firmly and sharply
and sometimes even when I do push it that way, the keyboard will either fail
to execute a tab or it will do so partially. This "partial" response happens
most often when the first letter the first letter of the table cell is
capitalized, and the letter is omitted. I call it a "partial" response,
because hitting the tab key a second produces the correct capital letter.

I know it isn't a hardware problem, because repeated use of the tab key in
NotePad is unploblematic. I think there is some setting that's being applied
to tables that creates problems. I turned off AutoCorrect, so that's not
where the problem lies. Any ideas about this?

Stephen Diamond

 

[Jezebel]

There's no way Word can detect how hard you press the keys.

 

[srdiamond]

That depends on how you define "detect." Of course Word does not represent
how hard the keys are pressed. But Word might very well cause some computer
activity after a tab that occupies the central processor so it doesn't detect
a press unless it is longer than normal. This possibility that you seem too
obtuse to glean is not only a logical possibility but seems to correspond to
the facts.

 

[Jezebel]

Wow, talk about flailing in the dark! It might indeed, if it were develped
by cretins. But sadly, it was not, so you're way out of your milieu.

 

[srdiamond]

It would not, of course, be "sad" if Word were NOT developed by cretins. What
is "sad" is that one so muddled in her thinking that her sentences mean quite
the opposite of what she intends presumes to give advice in a help forum.
Maybe if one could express oneself in grunts and gestures here, you could
avoid contradicting yourself and just appearing stupid.

Perhaps you could acquire a mentor who could convey the concept of
unintended consequences in complex systems and explain to you how this
concept accounts for generally well-designed computer programs sometimes
doing unexpected and ridiculous things.

 

[Jezebel]

Very droll. You're faced with two possibilities: look for a solution to your
problem, or persist with your fatuous fantasy and go on living with it.
Rather charming, in a sad and pathetic way, that you choose the second
option.

Gegen der Dummheit kaempfen die Goetter selbst vergebens.

 

[srdiamond]

You are preoccupied with sadnes. Everything is "sad." It is sad that
Microsoft programmers aren't cretins; it's sad that I persist in a fantasy
about a trivilal topic. You must be depressed for sadness to occur to you in
such odd contexts. Is that why you spend so much time on this board, tending
to the problems of others, whom you imagine are worse than they are, taking
your mind off your own problems?

Symptoms of depression, sadness and fearfulness. You are afraid to give a
gentleman in another thread your phone number, because this is a public
board, even though he provided his and you could easily have given yours by
e-mail, with instructions not to publicly release it. The world is such a sad
and scary place, isn't it.

If you had a touch of intellectual curiosity or even a genuine wish to be
helpful, you might have inquired about why exactly I conclude that some Word
setting is causing this glitch. I can easily put my data in a non-tabular,
tabbe, format and convert to a table. This makes the "problem" somewhat less
daunting, doesn't it? It also gives you a clue--something you are in need
of--as to my reasoning. Think about it and see if you can figure it out.

 

[srdiamond]

I was able to resolves this problem by changing my settings in Word. I had
been typing in Page Layout View. Changing to Normal View eliminated these
errors completely. Conclusion: Something in the more complicated formatting
of tables in Print Layout View impeded the computer's ability to receive
keystrokes. Microsoft should add this to the bug list for Word.