Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working

re: Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working
by Bertrand Le Roy December 26, 2005 @ 8:21 pm

Yes, I've had a similar problem on my laptop, but not in Word, in Visual Studio. All of a sudden, no special key works. The keys work in all applications except VS. I vaguely suspect the Synaptics driver.

re: Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working
by Rick Strahl December 27, 2005 @ 10:38 pm

I don't think it's a driver issue, because it happens both on the laptop internal keyboard and external Microsoft USB keyboard. But who knows...

re: Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working
by Rick Strahl January 09, 2006 @ 11:20 am

Ok found it: Somehow my Word Options set the WordPerfect compatibility options. Specifically there are two options in Tools | Options | General that refer to WordPerfect compatibility - make sure both are marked off.

re: Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working
by Jan Rosenberg February 16, 2006 @ 5:50 am

Thank you, Rick! I have been puzzling over this for weeks.

re: Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working
by Simon Klaus March 01, 2006 @ 3:03 pm

Had same issue, "Help for WordPerfect users" was enabled! Don't know how the hell it became selected. But thanks it was bugging the hell out of me....hmmm gives me an idea for April Fools day this year at work......mwhahahaha!

re: Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working
by Chris April 13, 2006 @ 6:45 pm

Thank you thank you thank you

re: Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working
by Stelle June 02, 2006 @ 3:21 am

Oh my God! That had been stressing me for weeks!!! Couldn't work out why my delete key wouldn't delete blocks of text... Thanks Rick!

re: Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working
by Kwala August 03, 2006 @ 12:56 pm

Thank you so much Rick! I had customized my MS Word a couple of days ago and noticed that my Home and Delete keys were not working! I thought it was the keyboard (I do have a laptop on a docking station). THANK YOU!!

re: Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working
by Kerrie August 29, 2006 @ 10:07 pm

I had the same problem and did not make the change myself- that I know of. Maybe it came/changed in a Norton or Dell or Microsoft auto updates? Do the rest of you with this problem have Norton or Dell or Microsoft auto updates?

re: Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working
by Deb September 23, 2006 @ 8:57 am

Thank goodness you have the answer! I had the same delete key problem - and it occurred overnight! I am the sole user of this computer and I know I wasn't even in the area of the Tools-Options-General menu!! I do have automatic updates from Norton and Microsoft. I bet one of those is the culprit!!

re: Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working
by Adam October 03, 2006 @ 4:30 pm

Rick, just want to thank you for finding this "Odd Word Problem!" It had been driving me nutzzz as well.

re: Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working
by psg October 16, 2006 @ 6:20 pm

I dont see the option for "wordPerfect..." in tools|options|general

re: Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working
by David October 25, 2006 @ 4:06 am

Thanks a bunch Rick.

This has been bugging me for several weeks. :)

re: Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working
by Mostafa November 21, 2006 @ 3:21 am

Rick, just want to thank you for finding this "Odd Word Problem!" It had been driving me nutzzz as well.
thank you

re: Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working
by J Davison December 06, 2006 @ 9:40 am

A thousand thanks!

re: Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working
by Wangsun January 14, 2007 @ 6:45 pm

Many thanks for this tip!

re: Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working
by Walter Thames January 30, 2007 @ 2:19 pm

Thanks for the fix. I noticed the problem right after installing, trying and removing a trial version of Office 2007. Maybe there's some Microsoft weirdness with the new rev?

re: Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working
by CharlieO May 30, 2007 @ 8:13 am

I have the same problem with my Delete Key and Backspace keys not working within only a specific Word document. It is a document I created a few days ago and up until moments ago everthing was working fine. The document is a basic Word document with a table. Nothing fancy about it. I reviewed the WordPerfect compatibility optins you referred to and both are unchecked already. Any other ideas ?

re: Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working
by Nuno August 01, 2007 @ 8:16 am

That problem can affect Word and Outlook (when creating emails). To correct that go to Tools > Options > Edit, and check the option Typing replaces selection. And that’s it, problem with backspace is fixed!

re: Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working
by David McKirnan August 21, 2007 @ 11:30 am

I have a variation on that problem that is not solved by the fixes cited above. In XP Word my delete key has begun printing an up arrow. If I press Ctrl - del it works as it should, so the problem seems to involve the Ctrl key as well (or perhaps entirely...).

This only occurs in Word - not in PowerPoint or non-Microsoft products.

Any ideas?

re: Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working
by David McKirnan August 21, 2007 @ 11:39 am

Found the Solution!!

From another WebLog:

Possibly the Delete key has been reassigned to another function? In Word, click on Tools | Customize | Keyboard | Categories: Edit | Commands: EditClear. Does "Current keys:" say "Del"? If not, click in the "Press new shortcut key:" box and press the Delete key. If the Delete key is currently assigned to another function, it will tell you what that function is. If the Delete key is not currently assigned, then you can assign it here. Be sure to "Save changes in: Normal.dot", and say yes if you are prompted to save changes to the Normal.dot global template when you exit Word.

This turned out to be the issue - this is likely the first place to look for many of these errors.

re: Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working
by mf August 31, 2007 @ 11:57 am

thanks so much for this quick fix to a puzzling problem!!!

re: Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working
by chris October 04, 2007 @ 7:18 am

Thanks for the suggestion. It worked for me and I was bugged by it as well. I believe the problem comes from working on other peoples documents. Some of them will change the settings in Word. It is a pain but thanks for the fix!!!

re: Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working
by Patty October 16, 2007 @ 7:28 am

THANK YOU!!! I started this job almost 2 months ago, and I've been a Word user for 20 years, and now I'm going back in time to Word Perfect and I hate it! This whole "delete" key thing has been driving me nuts!

re: Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working
by Bob December 29, 2007 @ 3:59 pm

I tried all your suggestions however my Home and Delete key do not work. I forced some air to see if that would work and it did for one keystroke.

Any other ideas?

re: Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working
by Shylaja June 13, 2008 @ 1:42 am

hey... hurray! for 2 weeks my home keys weren't working.. i followed the instructions you've specified and now, the problem has been resolved... thanks

re: Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working
by John July 14, 2008 @ 6:22 am

What a star - this suddenly started for no reason and was driving me daft! Back to normal again!

re: Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working
by Jane July 31, 2008 @ 5:06 am

Hi,
This happens with windows update and can happen between restarts. I agree it is really annoying as it is at odds with other editing tools. Thanks for the assistance!
Jane
Irish Car History Checks
http://www.cartell.ie

re: Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working
by JazzQueen August 12, 2008 @ 5:18 pm

THANK YOU. The home and delete keys just stopped working .. on their own! This happened at work and I had the keyboard replaced. Then a few DAYS after using the new keyboard the home and delete keys stopped working on this one. I knew something was up and have spent some time trying to solve the problem. Even the techs didn't know what to do and they're supposed to know, or at least know how to research enough to resolve the problem. Guess not. THANKS AGAIN. YOU ROCK.

re: Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working
by Greg September 03, 2008 @ 7:36 am

My WordPerfect option are off and the inability to Delete/Cut a paragraph or carrage returen keeps happening. After extensive testing, the problem is embedded in the carriage return immediately preceding a table. For all other carriage returns the Delete key works. If I force a carriage return (a blank one made by pressing Enter at the end of the problematic paragraph, I can delete the text AND the new end paragraph marker at the end of the paragraph but the new blank carriage return that is now immediately preceding the paragaraph inherited the problem and now cannot be deleted. It only happens for the carriage return immediately before a table. Tried mucking with Table Properties but didn't find any solution. Help?!

re: Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working
by wellington October 27, 2008 @ 10:46 am

I tried all of the above and no luck. I then ran a detect and repair on Word and it fixed it.

re: Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working
by Leisha November 09, 2008 @ 4:48 pm

Thanks the wordperfect unticked sorted out my problem, my frustration levels are returning to normal

re: Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working
by Irene Nixon November 15, 2008 @ 4:47 am

Thank you a million times. This has driven us absolutely mad for some years. We had asked I.T experts and they did not know the answer. We wrote to Computer Which and they did not come up with it. We are really grateful to you for this.

re: Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working
by Christine November 17, 2008 @ 2:40 pm

I had this problem with the Backspace key not deleting. After installing a translation software, I had to use CTRL or ALT + Backspace to be able to delete (ant then, again, it was deleting the whole word and not only one character...) So, I've been in Tools - keyboard commands and discovered that Backspace had been dedicated to another thing... I deleted that, and everything seems to be back to normal! Thanks for the great idea! I've been looking for a solution all day!

re: Odd Word Problem - Home and Delete keys not working
by Neil (Blueside) December 14, 2008 @ 4:26 am

Here we are three years after the original blog post in November 2005 and a web search solves this iritating problem of the backspace key note deleting blocks of text....been driving me mad!! Thanks Rick for hosting and solving this problem!!!