Page up, home, end and arrows stopped working

[Larry Craig]

I was working in Excel when all of a sudden my page up, home, end, and arrows stopped working. Page down still does. I noticed a lock light in the upper right hand corner of my keyboard that I hadn't seen on before. Anyway, it's off now, but the problem persists.

What can I do?

Thank you

I have Windows 7, latest Excel, but I don't think that should make any difference. I think I must have hit some wrong keys in a certain order, but then what do I know?

 

[Becky]

Welcome to the forum

To clarify, do you mean that those keys don't work but only in Excel?

 

[Larry Craig]

Word, Excel emails and another program I use. So I would say everything. The other navigation keys still work, the ones that work when I take the num llock off.
Thank you

 

[Becky]

Sounds like it's probably a problem with your PC/laptop rather than Office, what's your setup?

 

[Larry Craig]

Setup? I'm new to PC talk. I have Windows 7. What else?

I searched online before posting here. Seems that this is a common problem, but the solutions didn’t help me. I feel like I must have hit a wrong key or combination of keys that locked the navigation keys. I’m on the computer all day, and all of a sudden these keys stop working?

I asked my computer guy, and he never heard of it.

Well, any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Becky]

I just meant are you on a laptop or a PC? Any info about the equipment you are using would be helpful. Might just be a hardware problem, so if you are using a PC then you could just connect a different keyboard (one that you know works fine) and see if you get the same problem.

 

[Larry Craig]

Sorry. PC I don't have another keyboard handy to compare.

 

[Becky]

Ah ok. Do you have a Scroll Lock button on your keyboard? You may have accidentally pressed it if so.

 

[Larry Craig]

Now I'm really confused And embarrassed. Be patient with me. The scroll lock button is on the HOME key. HOME is in white, below that in blue is scroll lock. I use the home key a lot. What changes it from Home to scroll lock?

 

[Larry Craig]

I'm still trying to figure out how my home key turns into a scroll lock key. I use the home a lot, but the scroll lock function is on the same key, but I don't know what switches it back and forth. Tried looking online with no sucess

 

[Becky]

You probably have a function button somewhere (might be "Fn") that changes what certain keys do when it is held down - the text on it will probably be the same colour as "Scroll lock" (ie blue). If you can find it, try pressing Fn + Scroll lock

 

[Larry Craig]

I do. I tried it, and the arrows stopped working but pgup and pgdn continued working. But this key is right next to the shift and ctrl keys, so I can see how I hit it and I see the lock light go on as well. Do I know why the pgup key stopped working? Not really, but it is now, and for that I have immensely grateful.

Thank you for taking the time and you helped me a lot. I really appreciate it.

 

[Larry Craig]

Perhaps you can help with something else. It's small but annoying. I use Word, and I save my documents to 3 flash drives and an external hard drive. Sounds excessive, but I have years of work on these things. When I try to open a file from my C drive, the directory fills the screen. It only started doing this recently. When I open a folder from another drive, the window is only about a quarter of the screen, like it should be and always was. How can I get this back to the way it's supposed to be?
Thank you.

 

[Becky]

There's an icon in the top right of the window - next to the X to close it. That allows you to toggle between full screen and a smaller size (when it's a smaller size you can change the window dimensions by hovering your mouse on the edge and when the double sided arrow appears just click and drag). When you close the window, then the next time you open it it should be that size again (it usually opens to the size it was when last closed). Hope that makes sense!

 

[Larry Craig]

I'm familiar with those icons, but this box doesn't have it. I did start clicking around where it should have been, and the window reduced to the normal size. So problem solved.

Thank you again. I really appreciate your help.

If you don't mind, I'm going to save this link in case I need you again.

 

[Becky]

You're very welcome