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word question - help its deleting my work

edited June 2007 in - Writing Problems

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  • there i was happily typing away... then i noticed i had forgotten to type a word so i went back to the offending space typed the word and instead of all the other words being nice and moving over they sulked and got typed over.  i think its called insert and you can turn it on or off but i cant find the command prompt on windows.  can any one please help?
  • It's on the keyboard, over by the 'numbers block' on the right - button has 'insert' written on it. Press it once to restore normal delete functions.
  • thanks for the reply katy.  i have a laptop with no number pad any suggestions?  also i hadnt thought to check the key pad but cant see anything helpful.  thanks
  • I have a laptop and my 'insert' button is at the very top right-hand side in between home and pause/break. Just press it once.
    Hope you find it. Beryl
  • Amanda, on some programmes such as microsoft word, there is a little box at the bottom of the screen. It will have OVR in it. Double click on this and it will stop you typing over the top of your work. Hope this helps, i know how annoying this is, as i've had it happen to me dozens of times.
  • thanks to you all!  it seems to be an intermitent fault.  sometimes its fine and other times its not.
  • It is really easy to press / activate the over-write function by accident so it may not be a fault with your machine as such - rather good old butterfingers (if you're anything like me anyway!) - I've done it hundreds of times!
  • butterfingers is an understatement!  when you get in that old writing flow the fingers cant keep up with the brain!
  • I sometimes have a problem Amanda, and barely computer literate.

    What I do is save, exit the programme and then go back into the file and correct the damage.  This should clear whatever happened.
  • And if anything like this happens and some of your work has disappeared, just press/hold  control and Z to restore to your previous position. You can press it several times in succession to go back step by step to where you were before the problem.
  • PS If you are on a laptop the INS button may be in a different position on your keyboard.Mine is on the bottom line to the right of the space bar.
  • I don't press anything unless I know what it should do and how to undo it. So thanks for telling us that, it will be useful.
  • On many laptops the the overwrite key lbelled Ins is adjacent to the space bar and will regularly be pressed accidently
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