Strange problem while typing

R

Ricki Miles

I have a client who is working in Word 2000 and has the following problem -
I am wondering if it could be a corrupt AutoCorrect file. I am hoping
someone has some insight for how to fix it. Thank you,

Ricki

Hello, Ricki. I have a big problem and no one seems to be able to help me.
I'm not even 100% sure how to describe it, so here goes. Forgive me for
being wordy, but I thought it better to give you more info rather than less:

It all started with a document I was typing. I suddenly noticed that the
word "I'm" appeared in a few bizarre locations where I had not put them. At
first, I thought I just made a little mistake and didn't worry about it too
much.

Then, I was working on putting together a chronology chart. I'd be typing
along with no problem, then all of a sudden for no reason whatsoever, a word
(e.g. July, when I had actually typed the word July frequently in that
document) appeared throughout the document. And when I say throughout, I
mean THROUGHOUT. First, all the dates had been changed to July (not helpful
when you're doing a chronology!) and the word July also appeared in many
other places throughout the document. There was no rhyme or reason that I
could figure. July might have replaced a period, a name, a place, anything.

I had my secretary retype the document because I thought I might have had a
virus even though our techie people have confirmed that there is no virus.

Since then, I have added to this retyped document, and the same problem
persists. Not all the time, and not right away, but when it does, it's
rampant throughout the document.

Our techie people thought my "profile" might be "corrupted", so they gave me
a new computer and put all my stuff onto that new computer. So, here I was
today, with the new computer and.... you can guess, of course. It happened
AGAIN!!!!

Instead of crying, I started to laugh. I couldn't believe it was happening
again. Anyway, I decided to just press the UNDO key, and lo and behold, if I
held it down often enough, eventually it really did undo all those dreaded
July's. (actually, today it was "December"). Unfortunately, it also undid
all the "real" stuff that I'd been adding to the document, so that
ultimately wasn't helpful.

Do you have any idea what might be happening? Or how I might even go about
finding out what the problem is? I tried googling but I don't even know what
question to really ask. "problem, Word 2000, word being inserted
indiscriminately into document"?

Do you think it might be an autocorrect problem? I say this because on the
same day, once, it occurred not only on my office computer, but also on my
home computer. And today, as I was hovering over the undo button it didn't
say "undo typing", it said "undo autocorrect", and then after it said "undo
typing". I just can't figure it out.

Can you?
 
H

Herb Tyson [MVP]

It really does sound like a virus.

My next guess would be that it's an add-in gone wild... one that the user
uses at home and at work.

What happens if the user starts Word with the /a switch? Does the problem
occur then, as well?

For starters, I would try renaming/deleting Normal.dot (did the user copy
their normal.dot from their work/home computer to their home/work computer)?
Other files?
 

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