Problem with M$ Word

[bocadillo]

Any Word experts on line?

SWMBO has just called me into her workplace where WORD is acting very strangely. It was reported to me as a problem with Tables but it's more than that.

When pressing carriage return at the end of a paragraph, the insertion curso first moves down to the next line, as you would expect it to. But then it jumps an unpredictable way down the page. Further characters appear there.

I have checked the settings in Tools/Paragraph but nothing seems to be amiss there.

Any suggestions?

 

[Jeff]

Broken keyboard?

 

[bocadillo]

Broken keyboard?

Might be the problem. This is apparently a new one and has just started to be used.

 

[Durham Fox]

Sticky keys on the keyboard I would think!

 

[bocadillo]

Broken keyboard?

Sticky keys on the keyboard I would think!

Was too late yesterday afternoon to get another keyboard to try it with. She's going to do it this morning and let me know.

Not sure about the 'sticky key' idea. The insertion cursor drops to the next line and then suddenly drops further down - it doesn't go down line by line. New text is then added at that point.

On further investigation I found that the distance that the cursor drops down the page IS predictable. If you press Return on the top line, it will drop halfway down the page. If you then type in some more text and press Return, the cursor will again drop a single line but then almost immediately drop to two-thirds of the way down the page WHILST AT THE SAME TIME that second paragraph jumps UP the page to the one-third mark.

Repeating this makes the paragraphs split to quarters of the page and then fifths and so on!


A similar thing happens if you inset a table. If you try to inset a simple (for example) 3 column/3 row table, it first inserts it properly - BUT then almost immediately the rows increase in depth with only the top and a little of the sides of the frame being displayed. It seems to me that this is going to be part of the same problem.

Any other ideas?

 

[bocadillo]

Just heard that it has been tried with another keyboard with the same response.

 

[Macky]

I did have something similar Bob about 10 years ago that turned out to be a macro virus.
It didn't do any actual harm but was very frustrating.

 

[bocadillo]

I did have something similar Bob about 10 years ago that turned out to be a macro virus.
It didn't do any actual harm but was very frustrating.

Ten years ago? I suppose that means that you have forgotten how you got rid of it.
:icon_cry:

 

[Macky]

Ten years ago? I suppose that means that you have forgotten how you got rid of it.
:icon_cry:

I used the sledgehammer/nut approach & just reformatted the HD. :icon_bigg

 

[bocadillo]

I used the sledgehammer/nut approach & just reformatted the HD. :icon_bigg

How did I know that would be the case?
:icon_conf

 

[Jeff]

Ten years ago? I suppose that means that you have forgotten how you got rid of it.
:icon_cry:

Any decent anti virus program should be able to find it and get rid of it. Word macro viruses are a bit old hat now, but anti virus software still checks for them.

 

[bocadillo]

Any decent anti virus program should be able to find it and get rid of it. Word macro viruses are a bit old hat now, but anti virus software still checks for them.

I've sent an email to ask if they have any AV installed - no reply yet.

 

[bocadillo]

mmmm... Apparently Panda anti-virus software is installed.

 

[SJN-Fox]

You could try deleteing the template file normal.dot. This is normally found in


C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates

as this may have become corrupt. Word will recreate a new one when it is next used.