ms works won't copy

Hi: mom-in-law has MS Works on a W98 box (not w98se). When she opens one of her docs, right-clicks to use the "copy" function - it won't . The copy button is greyed out. I asked her to open wordpad & it allows copy. So is the doc itself write protected or other attribute locked? Corrupted? Is this a flaw or idiosyncracy of Works? (This is traditional works, not Works Suite & MS Word). She described this over the phone. So how do I fix it when I visit later this week? Thanks.

 

I think the confusion is caused by what is meant by Copy.
When in Works [4.5?], you would highlight some of the text by pressing and holding down the left mouse button and dragging it so a portion of the text is highlighted. Then you would right click on the highlighted portion of the text and select Copy. This would only copy the highlighted text so it can be Pasted elsewhere in the document or Pasted into another document. If nothing is highlighted, Copy is greyed.
If she is trying to copy the file in Works, maybe a Save As, giving it another name?
Copy while in Windows Explorer is an entirely different thing, you would be copying the file that you choose, then Pasting in another location. Or just grabbing the file by pressing and holding the left mouse button on the file and dragging to the folder of choice.

 

I forgot to mention that she had highlighted the selected text. Tried the same thing in Wordpad & it worked there. It had occured to me the file itself is corrupt & doing save-as might work. But who knows? Thanks.

 

Try highlighting, & then the Copy & Paste in the Edit Menu. Sometimes when you can't get the right click one to work the one in the Edit Menu will.

Also, try highlighting the text & hit Ctrl+C to copy. Then Ctrl+V to paste. Ya never know what's causing something not to work, & a different method of doing it just might do the trick.