So all of a sudden it was gone!
When I press Ctrl + A in MS Word or Outlook compose email, all of the text did not get highlighted. I opened a few other applications to find out whether the "Select All" and "Ctrl + A" had been broken in other places too? Like Wordpad, Notepad, Excel, IE, Firefox and what not. All the places were fine. It was just this one stupid place - Word docs and the Compose more of Outlook. I knew before that they’re both related. So 2+ hours of frustration and frantic search on google and what do I find? Nothing, practically nothing. There’s some dude out there who has spent like weeks finding out that the installation of Rich Text Controls do this. I didn’t have any of that installed. Just an application that used MS Word components. Later on, I asked like a dozen other people whether their "Select All" option had a shortcut changed to something strange like "Ctrl + CLEAR (Num 5)" and they all said no. Btw, if you're wondering that Num 5 means the key 5 on the right hand side of the keyboard where you have the Numbers pad and Num Lock key.
I googled once again only to find nothing about it, even on Microsoft website, nothing turned up for MS Office 2003. They did have something about shortcut changes in Word 2007, but it wasn't 2003. I had 2003. Also found that as usual, they admitted having broken functionality for Select All in Word and Outlook but that too didn't resolve my issue. Where was my Control A, man!? I was super pissed at Microsoft and Bill Gates as usual for hours. Only if I could strangle them. *grrr*
I come back to my Word document after a couple of hours, still very annoyed. I start playing around the Options and Customize menu only to find out that the other application I was using had somehow modified my Normal.dot file so the Ctrl + A shortcut got deleted from it. How? I don't know.
Solution: Under the Tools menu -> Customize -> Commands tab -> Keyboard button -> went to Edit - EditSelectAll and clicked on "Reset All" button to restore the Ctrl + A shortcut under the Current Keys list.
As you can imagine, I felt utterly stupid and silly when I found the solution. But what can I say, that's Microsoft for you.
We can hate it but we can't live without it. *sigh*
8 comments:
Hey Kanan, just saw your response on my blog! Awesome! Totally makes sense. Would like to email you. Can I? My email is aneri dot masi at gmail.
haa...ha...ha... I am glad that you got your control back! "pun intended"
:) and also that i am adding you to my blog roll... is it okay?
Man, thats a lot of digging you did! You should not feel stupid! Waise, how did you ever find the solution? I would have given up, honestly!
Kashmira, I hope I didn't fall under the seems-impressive category, because that's exactly what I am. ;) hahaha! sure girl, you can email me but I hope it won't be too difficult questions. I actually suck at answering questions so hope you're not looking for any of that. :P
Sakhi, well, thank you! yes, I'm glad I got it to work again. :D It was too frustrating to have that feature missing. Thank you for adding me to your blogroll. I realize I also need to do the same for yours. :) Thanks!
Kashmira, I did give up for a few mins, and then came back looking for the solution again and it was right there, I just didn't look because I didn't know that the shortcuts are customizable in the first place. These are such powerful applications and very underutilized most of the times, in my opinion.
Good that your efforts brought you desired result at last .. Frustration was not an end .. I had also went through these frustrating experience when I had to use frame maker to edit some document and where I tried using those quite-common Microsoft shortcuts !
I came across some anti-Microsoft quotes so remembered u and ur post ..
Check them out:
The box said 'Requires Windows 95 or better'. So I installed LINUX.
In a world without fences and walls, who needs Gates and Windows?
Windows has detected you do not have a keyboard. Press 'F9" to continue.
Use The Best...
Linux for Servers
Mac for Graphics
Palm for Mobility
Windows for Solitaire
Unix, DOS and Windows...the good, the bad and the ugly.
ACs are like computers - Both work fine until you open Windows!
I live v. happily without Microsoft (for the most part). I have a Mac :-)
Jaydip, it is when little things make our life harder and we don't know what's causing it. I have had this kind of thing happen to me so often with Microsoft products. Eventually when we find out the solution is quite simple and staring at us in the face in front of us. *sigh*
Soham, hahaha! funny ones.. the good, bad and ugly one was the best!
Memsaab, good for you. :) I haven't gone the Mac way yet.. some day...
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