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Writer's Haven => Formatter's Forge [Public] => Topic started by: spin52 on April 04, 2019, 05:45:11 PM

Title: Word has decided I can't delete anything
Post by: spin52 on April 04, 2019, 05:45:11 PM

So I was typing along, 30,000 words into my WIP, and spelled a word wrong. Suddenly, I find I can't delete anything, either by using the delete or backspace keys. I can add letters, but not delete them. I went to the 'accept changes' bit, and clicked 'accept all changes', and it let me edit that one word, but then went back to not allowing a deletion. It's only that one document where it won't work, and to my knowledge, I didn't change anything on the settings. As I said, I was well into the WIP when this started and it's driving me mad.
Any ideas?

Title: Re: Word has decided I can't delete anything
Post by: Lysmata Debelius on April 04, 2019, 06:44:41 PM

Could it be this? Something to do with Wordperfect settings. Probably not sinc eyou say you didn't change any settings, but you never know...https://www.officearticles.com/word/delete_block_cannot_delete_text_in_microsoft_word.htm (https://www.officearticles.com/word/delete_block_cannot_delete_text_in_microsoft_word.htm)

Title: Re: Word has decided I can't delete anything
Post by: spin52 on April 04, 2019, 07:20:26 PM

Thanks for the suggestion. Lots of interesting stuff there, but I'm not getting that same screen up, so I can't find the option to delete WordPerfect settings. I did find out that if I highlight a chunk of the text and cut and paste it into a new document, I have no trouble deleting things. So maybe I should cut and paste the entire document into a new file?

Title: Re: Word has decided I can't delete anything
Post by: Lysmata Debelius on April 04, 2019, 07:26:24 PM

Sounds like there's something fishy with the settings of that particular document. Cut and paste might be the way to go.

Title: Re: Word has decided I can't delete anything
Post by: spin52 on April 04, 2019, 09:03:04 PM

Aha! I think I've cracked it! I compared the toolbar with another document where I could delete things and discovered the Track Changes box was highlighted. It said to press Shift/Control/E to look at it so I did, and the highlighting disappeared. And I was able to delete again!!
No idea how it happened, but at least now I know. Thanks for trying to help!

Title: Re: Word has decided I can't delete anything
Post by: Lysmata Debelius on April 04, 2019, 09:10:09 PM

Thanks for reporting back :) 
Hopefully your struggles might help somebody else who was stuck in the same way.