Highlight and Overtype no longer works

[MartinShort]

H

(First post - so here we go:

My install of Word has just developed a rather odd "feature". If yo
highlight a portion of text and then type, the text should" be delete
in its entirely from the first keystroke. For some reason, that n
longer happens on my PC. Say for instance you have "A piece of text
highlighted and you type the letter "a" the cursor moves to the lef
of the highlighted text (unhighlighting it in the process) and insert
the "a" there.

I use the highlight and overtype feature quite a lot and have no ide
what might have (spontaneously - ha!) changed in my Word set up.
also tried a Detect and Repair on my Office installation to no avail

For the record, I am using Office XP (2002)

Anyone got any thoughts

Many thank
Marti

 

[Jay Freedman]

Hi

(First post - so here we go: )

My install of Word has just developed a rather odd "feature". If you
highlight a portion of text and then type, the text should" be deleted
in its entirely from the first keystroke. For some reason, that no
longer happens on my PC. Say for instance you have "A piece of text"
highlighted and you type the letter "a" the cursor moves to the left
of the highlighted text (unhighlighting it in the process) and inserts
the "a" there.

I use the highlight and overtype feature quite a lot and have no idea
what might have (spontaneously - ha!) changed in my Word set up. I
also tried a Detect and Repair on my Office installation to no avail.

For the record, I am using Office XP (2002).

Anyone got any thoughts?

Many thanks
Martin

Go to Tools > Options > Edit and check "Typing replaces selection".

Word does sometimes "lose track" of a random assortment of option settings.
Maybe it's gremlins, or cosmic rays or something. See the end of
http://www.gmayor.com/installing_macro.htm for a macro that will force the
proper values every time Word starts. To force this particular setting, add this
line to both the AutoNew and AutoOpen macros, just after the End With line:

Options.ReplaceSelection = True

 

[MartinShort]

Thanks to you both.

Jay - your solution is good. I think you're right about the gremlins,
or cosmic rays (or possibly a Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland
maybe?) - despite being a perenial "tinkerer and putterer", I have no
idea how this changed as I went nowhere near it (honest!). Thanks for
the link too - I'll keep this on file.

Martin

 

[dp]

I use Word 2003 and this is controlled under Tools | Options | Edit | tic
"Typing replaces selection". Maybe this will help you.
dp

 

[MartinShort]

Thanks DP - problem now solved.