Word 2000: little black square, cursor disappears, block stops, rogue linefeeds...

[aalaan]

Hi all you experts!

I'm using Word 2000 with no updates. I have a handful of very
irritating problems and would be gald of your expert answers.

1 What are the little black squares in several places in (someone
else's) documents? I can't reach them with the cursor. How can I get
rid of them?

2 Every now and then the cursor disappears completely and I'm flying
blind. OK in other places in the document. What's happening?

3 Sometimes when I block large chunks of text the block reaches a
stop and I have to deal with that and then select a new block.

4 Sometimes the delete key will not delete and I have to block mark
and then delete.

5 Sometimes random linefeeds seem to occur and break up continuous
text.

6 I need to work with 50,000-word and up documents. Is thi size a
particular danger?

Your replies to any of these will save my sanity! Thanks

aalaan

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Hmm. For (1), see http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/NonPrintChars.htm.
For (4), possibly http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/UnableToDeleteText.htm
would be helpful.

As for (6), one of my larger documents is 200,000 words--no problem at all.
Another is >60,000 with hundreds of linked graphics, hundreds of tables, and
thousands of index entries. The only built-in limit for Word document size
is the 32 MB limit on text only (not counting graphics). The practical
limits depend on your computer; in this case, amount of RAM is more
important than either processor speed or HD size.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[aalaan]

Thank you so much Suzanne. It seems most technical newsgroups have at least one
person who takes time to expertly guide, and you are the one (or one of them)
here!

Those references came up straight away on my old netscape (which I much prefer)
and they are very clear and well-written.

I've now solved the little black square. I'll try the delete problem, but at
this stage would say that if I select I usually can delete; the problem is
pressing delete and trying to delete from the cursor without the select.
Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

Thanks too for the reassurance about long documents.

Now, over to the others for the the remaining problems!

Aalaan

 

[Tony Jollans]

I'll try for #2

There are various situations where the cursor ends up in text that is not
visible on the screen - usually to do with text being in a container (table
cell, textbox, etc.) that is somehow constrained so that the text doesn't
all fit. In a similar vein a table which extends beyond the page margin can
have the same effect. Other possibilities are floating objects in the
'drawing layer' hiding things underneath them into which you may stray and,
perhaps less likely, formfields set as hidden text.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I've not had any experience with the Delete key not deleting (forward). The
two usual problems are with block deletes (which you say work) and Backspace
not deleting (backward), both of which are discussed in the referenced
article.

Wrt (3), how are you selecting the text? With the mouse or keyboard? I'm
wondering if the selection stops (or at least hesitates) at a section break,
wrapped graphic, or the like.

Wrt (5), do the "random linefeeds" occur in pasted text? (If so, see
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/CleanWebText.htm). And are they really
manual line breaks (with nonprinting characters displayed, you'll see a bent
arrow)? Or are they just places where a line breaks sooner than expected. Or
by "linefeeds" do you mean extra, unexpected spaces between lines of text
(such as might be caused by Space Before/After)?

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Shauna Kelly]

Hi aalaan

I'm using Word 2000 with no updates

Then it's time to update! Go to
http://office.microsoft.com/en-au/default.aspx and click "Check for updates"
in roughly the top right-hand corner.

Hope this helps.

Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word

 

[aalaan]

I'll try for #2

... Other possibilities are floating objects in the
'drawing layer' hiding things underneath them into which you may stray and,
perhaps less likely, formfields set as hidden text.

...> > > 2 Every now and then the cursor disappears completely and I'm
flying

No tables in the file. How can I verify and remove any drawing layer or
formfields?

 

[aalaan]

Wrt (3), how are you selecting the text? With the mouse or keyboard? I'm
wondering if the selection stops (or at least hesitates) at a section break,
wrapped graphic, or the like.

Keyboard, using shift and downarrow

Wrt (5), do the "random linefeeds" occur in pasted text? (If so, see
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/CleanWebText.htm). And are they really
manual line breaks (with nonprinting characters displayed, you'll see a bent
arrow)? Or are they just places where a line breaks sooner than expected. Or
by "linefeeds" do you mean extra, unexpected spaces between lines of text
(such as might be caused by Space Before/After)?

They are bent arrows (hard line break?). As far as I know not in pasted text
(unless the author has done this to the original file)

I also have a problem where sometimes a line gets indented and I can't remove
the indent without retyping the last word on the previous line and the first
word on this line.I think with all these problems there is a chance that the
original author played with various settings of styles (I am editing someone
elses document)..

 

[aalaan]

Frankly I'm nervous about doing this, because patches often seem to introduce
new problems and this is now my livelihood! For example, various articles say
the SP 2(?) causes Word to freeze!

There is this risk with all software. On the whole my original Word 2000 works
well, with the exception of the problems described (which may be due to the
original author playing with stuff). The only real bug I've ever noticed until
I tried to edit the current file is that in numbering, the single numbers line
up with the tens in the double, ie they do not comply with mathematical (Tidy)
practice...

An example of the reason for my caution about software is yesterday I installed
the anti-virus software Vet. Now it takes control of my browser and takes me to
trial redirection pages that don't redirect. It hangs up my machine when I try
to delete it. And generally it's messed up everything so that I shall probably
have to takes hours to clean my disk and reinstall all my software!

 

[Tony Jollans]

Normally you would expect to know if you had objects (although they can
sometimes be difficult to find) - and hidden formfields are only really an
issue if you are using a Word form.

Can you describe a circumstance where this happens - or does it just appear
to happen randomly (in which case I haven't any bright ideas at the moment)?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

(3) I tried this in a document with a section break, and it flew right over
it, so that's not the issue. So I'm stumped by that one, but perhaps someone
who uses the keyboard more than I do (I use the mouse for selection) can
help out here.

(5) It sounds to me as if you're really flying blind. The indent could be a
tab or a hanging indent or a left indent. Using the ruler and displaying
nonprinting characters would help you troubleshoot these issues. See
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/RevealCodes.htm

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

When you are formatting the numbering, set the alignment to Right instead of
Left and your numbers will align on the ones digit.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[aalaan4d]

Thanks Suzanne for all your good help. I may have posted some of this before
and if so I apologise. This is a summary of where I am:

1 I have been able to remove the "keep together" square blocks in the left
margin.

2 I have established that my large document was indeed corrupt because trying
to put in headers showed things like 'section 1, section 2...' etc. and I knew I
only had one section! Sure enough there was a rogue section break, which I
deleted.

3 I do back up to floppies (or did!) so possibly that's the reason I got
corrupt stuff beginning to happen. I now intend to copy whole files to floppies
under Explorer. Is that OK?

4 I have noticed bits of text disappearing randomly. But they are apparently
on the display only and don't permanently alter the file. Please confirm.

5 I continue to have problems with headers, eg the PAGENUM functiuon increments
so I get page 1 or 1, 181 of 181, etc.

6 What I am thinking of doing is a complete re-install of Word (2000) from the
CD. Will this give me a clean normal.dot or is there a better way? I will
check the 'prompt me before updating normal.dot' which I understand is a
recommended procedure.

If you able to reply directly on this rarther than links to MVP site it would be
good, unless of course the answers are lengthy. We are getting to a point where
I may have to ask you to name a charity of your choice that I can contribute to
in recognition of the great work you've done

 

[Charles Kenyon]

3. Back up on floppies from Windows? Yes. Not from Word.

5. Page 181 of 181...

There is a bug in Word that is different in different versions (including
different SRs).
See http://www.addbalance.com/word/pagexofy.htm or
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/AppErrors/PageXofY.htm for information on Page
X of Y problems. You may also want to take a look at:
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Numbering/PageNumbering.htm. If it applies
you may also want to look at
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Numbering/PageNumber0.htm.

6. Reinstall to get new normal.dot. Not only overkill but it won't work. See
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/AppErrors/BlankDocNotBlank.htm.
--
Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide


--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies and questions to
the newsgroup so that others can learn from my ignorance and your wisdom.

 

[Shauna Kelly]

Hi aalaan

I've used Vet or one of its derivatives for years. It sounds like you have
really awful problems and not what should be expected. Their technical
support people are really good. If I were you, I'd give them a ring:
http://www.vet.com.au/html/contact/

Hope this helps.

Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word

 

[Shauna Kelly]

4 I have noticed bits of text disappearing randomly. But they are
apparently
on the display only and don't permanently alter the file. Please confirm.

I suspect that this is a display issue. I'd download the latest drivers from
the website of the manufacturers of your video card and monitor for your
version of Windows.

Hope this helps.

Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Although I did have peekaboo text in one of my documents that was corrupted.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[aalaan]

Although I did have peekaboo text in one of my documents that was corrupted.

But did you find that they were premanently missing from the file or did they
come back on another reload? (panic... panic...) BTW, on successive reloads of
the file after trying various solutions (like resetting the style for all)
Explorer it is reporting smaller sizes of files but Word reports about the same
number of words. Is the latter held in some field that may be corrupt or its it
recounted every time you ask for it?