Unable to enter data

[Jeff_Dean]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

All of a sudden this afternoon, Excel has stopped behaving properly. I created a new line in my ledger spreadsheet, using a QuicKeys macro that has been working consistently for a very long time (select whole row, copy, insert row). I began entering data normally, and for the first few cells it behaved properly. Then in one cell it began to misbehave: after I typed a few characters it dropped them and began with the next character. It now does that in every cell, and the auto-complete feature also "times out" in about a second or so. (The malfunction is clearly time-related, not dependent on the number of keystrokes.)

I have tried trashing the preferences, and I've restarted the computer and run fsck. I'm using the latest updates to both Mac OS X and to Office 2008. Any advice?

TIA, Jeff

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

All of a sudden this afternoon, Excel has stopped behaving properly. I created
a new line in my ledger spreadsheet, using a QuicKeys macro that has been
working consistently for a very long time (select whole row, copy, insert
row). I began entering data normally, and for the first few cells it behaved
properly. Then in one cell it began to misbehave: after I typed a few
characters it dropped them and began with the next character. It now does that
in every cell, and the auto-complete feature also "times out" in about a
second or so. (The malfunction is clearly time-related, not dependent on the
number of keystrokes.)

I have tried trashing the preferences, and I've restarted the computer and run
fsck. I'm using the latest updates to both Mac OS X and to Office 2008. Any
advice?

TIA, Jeff

The only thing I can think of is to trash QuickKeys.

 

[Jeff_Dean]

Thanks, Bob, but this has no effect. I might add, in the light of a similar but not identical thread I checked before posting my query, that my problem affects both old and new files.

Has anyone else seen this problem recently? Any other ideas?

Jeff

 

[JE McGimpsey]

All of a sudden this afternoon, Excel has stopped behaving properly. I
created a new line in my ledger spreadsheet, using a QuicKeys macro that has
been working consistently for a very long time (select whole row, copy,
insert row). I began entering data normally, and for the first few cells it
behaved properly. Then in one cell it began to misbehave: after I typed a few
characters it dropped them and began with the next character. It now does
that in every cell, and the auto-complete feature also "times out" in about a
second or so. (The malfunction is clearly time-related, not dependent on the
number of keystrokes.)

I have tried trashing the preferences, and I've restarted the computer and
run fsck. I'm using the latest updates to both Mac OS X and to Office 2008.
Any advice?

There's nothing in XL's entry functions that is time dependent, so it's
something else in your system. Quickkeys is the obvious suspect but are
there any other haxies running?

 

[Jeff_Dean]

Problem solved. I had tried to use PopChar to insert a special character (minus sign) in an Excel cell, and there must be a bad interaction between Excel and PopChar (which have coexisted happily on my machine for ages). PopChar's preferences were corrupted, and as soon as I trashed them and relaunched PopChar, the trouble in Excel went away.

Moral: Avoid using PopChar with Excel.

Thanks to you both for pointing me in the right direction, even though it wasn't QuicKeys that was the issue.

Jeff