Can’t select with mouse inside Word (Word XP)

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Stupidly, I must have turned something on..or off. I can navigate with the arrows but not the mouse.

Any ideas?

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Are you saying that you can use the mouse for everything else?

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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Yes. Word seems to think it is read only. Mouse works everywhere else.

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I’m not clear from your post whether you can’t navigate with mouse (scroll), can’t select anything, or can’t move anything once it’s selected.

1. For navigation, make sure Tools/Options/View has vertical &/or horizontal scroll bar ticked.
2. For drag & drop, make sure Tools/Options/Edit has Drag & Drop text editing ticked.
3. If you can’t select certain parts of the document, is it a protected form? You’re not supposed to be able to select text in a protect part of a form. Try showing the forms toolbar & clicking on the lock button.

Hope this helps.

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Thanks, Phil,
I can not select certain parts of the document and can not drag and drop. The drag and drop selection is checked and the forms toolbar says that it is not protected. ?????

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A true mystery. Is this with all documents or just 1? If it’s one, why not attach it here for someone to look at.

As I read over your response, I’m a bit puzzled. You say you cannot select certain parts of the document–that sure sounds like a document that has certain sections protected. Unless your referring to the header/footer part. Can you be more descriptive when you say certain parts.

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It happens on all Word docs. See attached

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I could find nothing wrong with the document. I can select, drag & drop, etc. using Word 2000. However, I still haven’t used Word XP, so I’m not sure if there’s a “feature” or “problem” that I’m not familiar with. Maybe someone else has had this experience with Word XP.

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I opened the document up in Word 2002 (XP) and had no problems at all completing any of the normal cut and paste and selection tasks that Phil went through with Word 2000.

It appears to be quite a normal Word document, with no restrictions on selections showing anywhere. It doesn’t contain any form fields and is not locked in any way that I can see. Everything I try seems to be drawing a .

Sorry I can’t shed any light on the mystery for you.

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Hello,

If the document seems to have nothing wrong with it when accessed by other users, while on the other hand all your Word documents are having this problem, that sounds like a good time to try renaming your Normal.dot – could just be a corrupted Normal.dot.

Gary

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Thanks, Gary,

I tried rename and it didn’t work….nor did re-install

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Thanks, Gary,

As per Phil I eliminated normal.dot and have no add-ins.

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Hi again,

Since we’re all stumped, here’s another left-field idea, along the lines of rep’s suggestion: did you by any chance make any change to the (Windows) graphics settings – particularly the colors settings (16 bit, 24 bit etc.)? – don’t know if that could affect Word XP (and don’t know which OS you’re using), but with Word 97/Win 98, and on some computers, this could cause a problem with Word (OK, so it’s a longshot……)

Gary

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I giess it is a sweet mystery. I have used the XP detect and reoair feature which did nothing! Thank God I have WordPerfect so that I can word process. Too dependent on mouses!

U pluribus unum

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I’m guessing now, but you might try a couple other things. With Word closed, search for normal.dot (I’ve read it doesn’t exist until you make at least one modification), rename it to normal.old, & restart Word. You can also go to Start/Run & type “winword.exe /a” (without quotes) & press enter. This starts Word without any add-ins or modifications. Then open your document.

If Word acts OK after starting it this way, look in the startup folder for Word (& also for Office) & remove all the add-ons. Then try it & keep putting add-ins back in the folder until you find which is causing the problem. This may also be a registry problem. As I say, without using XP myself, I’m guessing.

Hope this helps.

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Thanks, Phil,
for your suggestions. I tried that but no change. I uninstalled Word and re-installed it. There are no add-ins. It still doesn’t work!

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Well, one last try (I’m really in the dark without having Word XP). First, do you have Word Perfect help & navigation keys turned on? If so, turn them off. Maybe they have some strange effect in Word XP that doesn’t exist in other versions.

Also, see if this article WD2002: Difficult to Select Text on the Line Above the AutoCorrect Options Button gives you any ideas.

Let us know.

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Thanks again, Phil,

Tried all but no soap!!!

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Sorry if I am stating the obvious but have you tried closing Word and restarting your computer? That’s what works for me

I hope you get it working again somehow

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Thanks for the thought. I have restarted several times. BTW, I was born in Sydney many eons ago.

Good on ‘ya

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Twice in the past few months, 2 different users in my firm couldn’t see their mouse (mice)and could only use their keyboards. The solution for them was as follows….They had a dramatic coloration of their screen and menus….when their screen coloration was changed to something less dramatic….or softer…the mouse appeared again. This may help you. Another solution, because we have had to do a lot of virus clean-up from the ninja creator, run the ms repair discs of run specific virus software from your virus provider….RD

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This may be a little “left-field” but I am reminded of a similar-ish problem I had on my old machine whereby the mouse pointer was only available in the left margin of Word documents.
Turned out it was a problem with the graphics card and was fixed by going into the software that came with the card and running some fix.
Maybe your hardware has some incompatibility with Word XP?
Just a thought…

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