psycho Excel selecting problem (2K)

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Hey kids,

Has anyone run across this situation? There must be a trigger, but suddenly Excel is in “Select” mode. No matter what you do with the mouse or arrow keys, you can only select a range of cells. You can’t “get out” of the mode to type or do anything else. How is this triggered and how do you turn it off?

THANKS!
Angela

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I have a couple of questions for you:
1. Does this happen with any one particular workbook, or with every spreadsheet that you open?
2. Does the Escape key help you out?

Thanks!

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Does the status bar say “EXT”?
Does F8 get you out of it?

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My problem is that this has happened several times to two coworkers. I’m not sure what triggers it, and so it’s hard to duplicate. I’ll pass your questions on to them and see if they remember the answers. Thank you!
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I just played with the F8 EXT thing, and that’s similar to the behavior that they’re getting, but it’s more persistant. With EXT mode, you can start typing something and arrow out of it. But with what they were having, I don’t think they could do that.

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Try “pressing and rolling” the wheel on the mouse.

Steve

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It’s not you, Angela (or your co-workers) . My office still uses Excel 97. Every once in a while, but not as often as you, I get the same deal – your mouse is stuck selecting ranges, and you can hardly do anything. The only out I’ve sound is to Ctrl-S (save) then Ctrl-W (close) to close the workbook. Finally, shut Excel down & start over. I haven’t figured it out myself.

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not only that, but i’ve had this behavior operate across the board in all office apps. for example, you go to word and click somewhere away from the cursor and everything between the selection gets hilighted. sometime toggling ScrLk works but more often than not — gasp — I have to reboot. This is Win2KPro, Office2KPro, but I’ve seen similar things on other installations. There seems to be something buggy in Windows code that occasionally pops up. In my experience, this tends to happen more often in Excel than anywhere else but it is a huge pain. Doesn’t happen too often, thankfully.

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I have this problem on both a Dell and a Gateway. It’s especially annoying in File Explorer. Sometimes I can escape the behavior by putting the cursor on the anchor cell in Excel, or first file selected in File Explorer, and Ctrl-Shift-Clicking.

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Angela

This situation can also be due to a sticky shift key. Have them tap the shift key a couple of times to free it up.

Good luck

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This happens almost daily. But only with Excel and only on my Dell Laptop. I had chalked it up to a malfunction with the touchpad on the laptop. I just exit Excel, bring it back and everything’s okay for a while longer… But no real explanation, I’m afraid!

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So do any of the above suggestions help with your problem, or do you just reboot/restart?

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Strangely enough, I haven’t been able to duplicate the problem. I do recall that using the ESC key had no effect. The wheel mouse is not the issue as I have no wheel mouse on the laptop, it’s a touchpad. And I’m fairly certain that the F8 key would not have been the cure – it’s a different type of action (but I will try it when the problem returns, you never know…)

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Strangely enough, I haven’t been able to duplicate the problem. I do recall that using the ESC key had no effect. The wheel mouse is not the issue as I have no wheel mouse on the laptop, it’s a touchpad. And I’m fairly certain that the F8 key would not have been the cure – it’s a different type of action (but I will try it when the problem returns, you never know…)

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So do any of the above suggestions help with your problem, or do you just reboot/restart?

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I have another user with this issue now. She writes:
Since last Friday, and I’ve shut down my computer nightly since and the problem continues, when I go into Excel and use my mouse to choose a specific cell, my mouse essentially turns into a scrolling mouse, and I can’t do anything except use Ctrl-Alt-Del to end task. If I use the tab key or up/down arrows, then it’s fine. This is the only program I’m having problems with. .

I asked her to examine the suggestions above and she responded:
Since I’ve rebooted 3 times since this started, I wasn’t optimistic, but I tried them all and nothing worked.

Can anyone help??? THANKS!!

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OK, I think we actually solved this, and I wanted to post the solution in case others run across it. We swapped mouses (or mice? what would that be?)! We gave her an optical mouse and she’s all set!

Regards,
Angela

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> We swapped mouses (or mice? what would that be?)!

Mieces, as in “I hate those mieces to pieces”.

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> We swapped mouses (or mice? what would that be?)!

Mieces, as in “I hate those mieces to pieces”.

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OK, I think we actually solved this, and I wanted to post the solution in case others run across it. We swapped mouses (or mice? what would that be?)! We gave her an optical mouse and she’s all set!

Regards,
Angela

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I have another user with this issue now. She writes:
Since last Friday, and I’ve shut down my computer nightly since and the problem continues, when I go into Excel and use my mouse to choose a specific cell, my mouse essentially turns into a scrolling mouse, and I can’t do anything except use Ctrl-Alt-Del to end task. If I use the tab key or up/down arrows, then it’s fine. This is the only program I’m having problems with. .

I asked her to examine the suggestions above and she responded:
Since I’ve rebooted 3 times since this started, I wasn’t optimistic, but I tried them all and nothing worked.

Can anyone help??? THANKS!!

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