Word document suddenly goes blank

[nkings]

My elderly father is having a recurrent problem in Word - he is typing away
when suddenly his entire document goes blank and he can do nothing to restore
it (ie to get his text back). Does anyone know what the problem might be and
how he can restore his document if it suddenly goes blank ? Many thanks.

 

[Graham Mayor]

Does clicking CTRL+Z restore the text? My guess is that he inadvertently
selects all the text (CTRL+A) when he requires SHIFT +A then the next thing
he types replaces the lot.

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com

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[nkings]

Many thanks indeed. I think you've exactly identified the problem.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

And if this is a frequent problem, there are two rather drastic solutions:

1. Disable "Typing replaces selection" (Tools | Options | Edit). I'd be very
loath to do this, as it can be extremely inconvenient.

2. Remove the Ctrl+A key assignment. This would still allow one to select
all the text by Ctrl+clicking in the left margin, but it would remove the
possibility of inadvertently pressing Ctrl+A by mistake for Shift+A. This
one is much better, I think; although I usually recommend Ctrl+A for Select
All, that's only because it is more concise than trying to describe how to
do the left margin click, but the latter is what I actually use.