The following excerpt is from Chapter 14 of "Using Microsoft Word," by Masha Zager and Claire Chase, copyright Que Corporation, 1985.
Common Disasters and Quick Remedies
First lessons in Word are always punctuated by cries of "What have I done?" as text moves or disappears in unintended ways. Even experienced users receive occasional surprises. Fortunately, things are usually not as grim as they look, and most disasters can be rapidly fixed. This chapter contains a compendium of problems that the authors have either encountered personally or been called in to witness. Also provided are suggested solutions to these problems.
First Lines of Defense
When you hear the warning beep, or when the program does not do what you expected, the first place to look is the message line at the bottom of the screen, right above the page number. The message by itself may not tell you very much, particularly if you have not been using the program very long, but Chapter 22 of the Word Manual lists all Word messages alphabetically, with a succinct explanation of each one.Be careful when you see the Enter Y to confirm loss of edits message. This message appears when you have tried, intentionally or unintentionally, to clear a window or load a new document into a window containing text. Unless you want to lose the changes you made since you last saved the document, do not press Y. Pressing Y discards unsaved changes so that you can clear the window or load a new document. If you don't want to lose unsaved changes, move the mouse pointer into the command area and press both buttons. Now you will be able to resume entering text or giving commands.
Word has an on-screen help facility you can reach by giving the Help command (LEFT button) or by moving the mouse pointer to the question mark on the bottom line of the screen and pressing the LEFT button. If you give the Help command, the beginning of the Help document appears, and you must search to find the information you want. If you move the mouse pointer to the question mark, Word provides you with advice relevant to the part of the program you are using. In either case, you see a special Help menu you can use to ask for information about specific problems.
Selecting the Wrong Command
Pressing the wrong mouse button or losing control of the mouse and selecting the wrong command are easy mistakes to make. Do not panic! The first reaction of an inexperienced user is to press more buttons. Pressing one wrong button never causes any problem you cannot recover from easily, but continuing to give wrong commands can compound your error and cause a great deal of confusion. If you have ever tangled yarn, you know the worst thing you can do is to grab the end of the yarn and pull. Word, too, responds better to careful unraveling than to "brute force." As soon as you realize you gave the wrong command, stop and compare what you see on the screen to the illustrations in this chapter. They will help you learn what to do.
The Delete-Prlnt-Quit Triangle
When you use the RIGHT mouse button, you select not only a command but the first choice at the subcommand level. After you become an expert Word user, you can use the RIGHT button to select commands, such as Transfer Load or Print Printer, in one step instead of two. Because of the potential for confusion, you have been advised in this book not to select commands (except for Delete) with the RIGHT button.
If you use the RIGHT button for Delete, you select both the command and the scrap as the destination for the deleted text. (To delete text to the glossary, you use the LEFT button.) Because at least 99 out of 100 deletions are sent to the scrap, using the RIGHT button as a matter of course is easier. The only danger in using the RIGHT button for Delete is that the mouse pointer might slip and land on the Print or Quit command.
The Print Command
When you have the mouse pointer on the Print command and you press the RIGHT button, you select the Print command and the first subcommand, Printer. The following appears on the screen:
PRINT PRINTER :Printer not readyor
Enter Y to continue or cancelor
Formatting. . .If you see the Printer not ready message, ready the printer. You should now see one of the other two messages. If you see the Enter Y to continue or Press ESC to cancel message, press both buttons to cancel the command. If you see the Formatting . . . message, you have set Printer Options for continuous-feed paper, and Word begins formatting for printing without asking for confirmation. Cancel twice, once to stop formatting and once to return to the Main Menu.
The Quit Command
When you use the RIGHT button to give the Quit command, you select both the command itself and the first choice in the next step, namely, to save your current document, style sheet, and glossary under the names you used to load these files. If your document and style sheets have names, you see the following:
QUIT:saving file. . .
You cannot stop Quit at this point, but do not worry; Word is saving all your active files, and you will not lose anything.
When you see the A> or C> prompt, restart Word. If you give the WORD/L command instead of the WORD command to restart, you return to where you were working in the document you just left.
If you use the RIGHT button to select the Quit command and you have not assigned a name to your document or style sheet, the screen displays the Not a valid file message.
All disk files must have names, so Word could not save the document or style sheet and could not execute the Quit command. Press both buttons to cancel the command.
The Delete and Insert Commands
If you accidentally hit the Delete or Insert command with the RIGHT button, or the Undo command with either button, you delete or insert text unintentionally. If text suddenly appears or disappears, using these commands may be the cause.
If you notice the deletion or insertion right away, give the Undo command to undo the effect of your last action. If you do not notice the problem until later, you will have to correct the text manually. If you must reenter a lot of deleted text, see the section called "Undoing Major Editing Errors" in Chapter 13.
The Gallery Command
If you accidentally select the Gallery command with either mouse button, you will see the current style sheet in the gallery. To return to the Main Menu, move the mouse pointer to the Exit command and press the LEFT button.
Subcommands and Prompts
You can cancel most commands simply by moving the mouse pointer into the command area and pressing both buttons. You can cancel the command if you see any of the subcommands or prompts shown in figure 14.1 on pages 330, 331, and 332.