Cannot double-click on text and drag to expand selection

[dedawson]

In earlier versions of PowerPoint, and both earlier and current (2007)
versions of Word and Excel, one could double-click on a word to select
it, and keeping the mouse button depressed, drag to expand the
selection word-by-word. When one attempts to do this in PowerPoint
2007, the double-click does indeed select the entire word, as
expected. But when one then attempts to drag to extend the selection,
the start point of the selection collapses to the point at which the
cursor was located when the double-click was made, and only extends as
far as the mouse is dragged, not through the end of each subsequent
word the cursor crosses. Is this by design, a bug, or something that
can be fixed with a registry tweak. Its pretty annoying that
PowerPoint behavior no longer matches that of the rest of Office. Its
also a pretty useless implementation.

 

[Glen Millar]

Hi,

I can't reproduce this- it works here as you explain it should. Have you
tried a different mouse or computer? Do you have some strange keyboard
setting about selecting entire words (something I vaguely remember about)?

--
Regards,
Glen Millar
Microsoft PPT MVP

Tutorials and PowerPoint animations at
the original www.pptworkbench.com
glen at pptworkbench dot com

 

[John Wilson]

Maybe try enabling select whole words in PowerPoint Options > Advanced. It
does seem to behave a little differently though in 2007

 

[dedawson]

Hi Glenn,

After reading your reply, I decided to take a second look at the auto-
select behavior. I had glanced at it earlier to confirm it was Off
(the setting I have used in all Office apps for years), and then ruled
it out as the source of the problem. After looking closer, it turns
out that this option is indeed the the root cause of the problem, and
as expected, its the result of Microsoft's inability to provide common
behavior across all Office apps (how many years has it been now?).

In Word and Excel (both 2003 and 2007), with this option Off, one can
click in the middle of a word and drag into the middle of a following
word, and only the portion actually drug across is selected.
Performing the same action with the option On results in both words
being selected in their entirety. Regardless of the state of the
option, however, if one double-clicks in the middle of a word and then
drags into the middle of a following word, both words are selected in
their entirety. (Actually, with the option On, one can force a revert
to Off behavior by clicking, dragging forward (entire words selected)
and then dragging backwards (final word partially selected -- weird).

In PowerPoint 2003, the behavior provided by the state of the option
was identical to that of Word and Excel. In 2007, however, PowerPoint
treats a double-click no different than a single click. If one wants
to obtain the old double-click behavior, one must set the option On,
at which point the ability to single click and drag portions of words
is lost.


In summary, the Word/Excel implementation is very useful. The
PowerPoint implementation is Unacceptable and counter-productive.
Hope someone at MS is listening.

regards,

david

 

[Glen Millar]

David,

Thanks for the feedback. Regards someone listening- we can certainly try to
check it doesn't go wrong in 2010.

--
Regards,
Glen Millar
Microsoft PPT MVP

Tutorials and PowerPoint animations at
the original www.pptworkbench.com
glen at pptworkbench dot com

 

[rfackenthal]

This bug still exists in 2010!! It has been around for many years, since version 2007! Can you PLEASE fix it Microsoft? It is very irritating!