Letters Delete In OE When Typing

Very strange behavior happening here. My mother-in-law has been having a problem with her letters when composing in her OE. I'm not sure what version she has, but it may be OE5. I'll try to explain this as simply as I can. Here is what she does:

She types her letter. She proofs it as she types it. A few lines down she realizes she misstyped something and goes back to the word and deletes a few letters and then starts to type in the correct ones. As she types, the cursor starts BACKING UP and DELETES letters (as in the backspace feature) instead of moving forward and putting the letter in that she wants to type. Are you understanding this? It only happens occassionally. Why is it doing this? I remember it doing it in my mail a long time ago, and I think there was a fix for it, but for the life of me, I can't remember what it was. I've tried a google search for answers and can't find anything that relates to this weird situation. Any one have a clue to why this is happening and maybe how to fix it? Remember now, she's 79 years young and we can't give her any complicated fixes. Would running an IE Repair work? We might be able to get her to do that via the phone.

Thanks for any and all input.

 

Hi Panda
Tell her to tap her insert key?

Daizy

 

Have her press the INSERT key once when that occurs. This key will toggle the "Typeover" feature on and off.

 

Great idea Zephyr! (teasing)

 

Great minds think alike!!!!

Thanks for the tip!!!! I can see how this could be happening now since the INSERT key sits right above the DELETE key and she's probably hitting it by accident. She has LOTS of accidents on the keyboard. When she's typing letters she has a habit of 'losing' them and then all of a sudden they come back. We laugh every time she tells us this. And, then sometimes her letters end up in the DRAFT folder and she swears she sent it. Gotta love her, though. For her age, it's a wonder she even knows HOW to surf. We give her lots of credit.

Ok. Will let her her know that she needs to stop DRAGGING her fingers all over the keyboard and watch what she is doing.

Great job you two!!!

 

Nothing to do with age. And like you, I greatly admire that she's up to the challenge. I've been using computers for years now...and have still managed to hit that dang insert key more times than I care to count!

Daizy

 

Forgive me, I had to laugh (mostly at myself) when I saw your statement:

It reminded me of when I first started out with these one-eyed monsters and made an occasional attempt at composing and sending E-mail.

The point is, when I was composing a message in a reduced size window and inadvertantly clicked off the active window, it always obscured the message screen (as it should) and I didn't have a clue where it disappeared to. It took me a long time to learn that the message was still there behind the active screen but then I'm a slow learner.

Just tell her to look down below on the Task Bar and click on anything that looks like a mail message.

 

One other possiblilty occurs. If you have the document set to center the text, you will get some really strange looking behavior when you go in to edit.

 

Zephyr...LMAO! I know what you mean. I remember my first experiences with e-mail, too. Pretty wild stuff going on then. The active screen drove me nuts. Unfortunately, her letters aren't sitting on the task bar. We have NO idea what she does with them. The Draft dodger we understand, but the actual IT'S DISAPPEARED! is still a mystery. And, as with most 'oldster-youngsters', a lot of her letters repeat themselves. I sometimes wonder if I've opened the same letter twice! But, like Daizy mentioned, we have to give her credit for trying. And, we do.

She was very impressed with the INSERT button trick. The way she explained it to me was that instead of hitting the BACKSPACE button she was probably hitting the INSERT button which is a major possibility since they are right next to each other and she's always in a hurry when typing and doesn't always pay attention to what she is doing. She even told me that she wouldn't have to write that fix down as she does it all the time!

Thanks, everyone, for jumping in on this one.