Office & productivity software forum: backspace wont work

Of all the weird things happening with a corrupted normal.dot this would be one of the weirdest. But one never knows.

So go into Windows Explorer, find all occurences of a file called normal.dot, delete them and see if Word now behaves.
Otherwise, I suggest using the delete-key, which in this situation behaves exactly the same as the backspace, as far as I can see.

Kees

Josha,

The first hit in http://www.google.com/search?q=word+backspace+delete is to a discussion with experts-exchange. You need to pay a membership fee to see the answers, but - luckily - you can see the whole thread in google's cache also.

There are a few other suggestions, apart from deleting normal.dot and getting used to use the delete key. It won't harm to try them.

You did an uninstall/install, but did you use the Office 2003 Removal Wizard in between? It cleans things normal uninstall doesn't clean. This secret setting might be one of them.
You can download it from www.microsoft.com/office/ork/2003/tools/BoxA13.htm if you can't find it on your Office CD.

Finally, if you've got a fully paid version of Word, you might consider to contact Microsoft technical support. But it won't be free, I'm afraid.

Please post back if there are interesting developments.

Kees

Woops a bit too fast there, forgot to write in English. DOH, think i'm a bit too tired.
I just encountered same problem, but was able to fix it. Think i accendently hit a shortcut key in word which changed a setting.
Do this(not sure on the names cause my word is in a other language)..
1. Click "functions" in the menu in word
2. Choose "Preferences" (the last element in the list)
3. Choose the tab, "edit" (between "General" and "print")
4. Make sure the first checkbox "New text substitutes marked" is checked

Should be it, hope you figured it out, and was able to navigate to the right place:) Isn't at all sure about my translations:)
/Anders

Cheers nader11 that sorted the problem, no idea how I accidentally managed to uncheck that box though!