Suddenly this morning I have a unique problem with Outlook. I am running XP, Office 2003 -basic (word, excel, and outlook) and as far as I know am completely current with fixes. I know that years ago there were “code pages” – that defined keyboards, but not sure if new stuff still uses them. I am using word as my Outlook email editor. My keyboard is a standard Dell keyboard that came with the dell box.
Every thing was OK yesterday, but not this morning.
When I compose a new email, or forward with changes, or reply with changes – the period key on main keyboard (lower case of >) does not work. The period key on ten key keypad works fine.
Using Outlook with word as the email editor, pressing the period key does not print a period, but instead opens the Outlook 2003 dialog box called Select Name and Highlights the To: field in the new email message – further typing goes into the name box at the top of this dialog box.
I ran two sets of tests, one trying all keys on a new outlook blank page where I tried all of the keys and got the above mentioned actions with the period, other keys were fine, I then ran the same test using other software – black screen DOS prompt, and now on this post to this board. The error only occurs with the Outlook / word combination. In my other tests, the period key works as it should. As you can see from this post – the period works.
I don’t know if “code pages” are still used and if so – I don’t know where to find them for Outlook or word. The error seems to be what would happen if somehow the code page for either outlook or word (possibly Office) was corrupted.
Any help will be appreciated – I am a really bad touch key typist, but having to revert to the period on the ten key pad would really be a pain.
Thanks in advance Tom
