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Techy details: I'm using Word 97 SR-2 under Windows 98SE, and working on a
network (NT Server). Word was working as it usually does until today.
Antivirus software has been installed and is automatically updated fairly
regularly, and no macros at all show in the problem documents (as indicated
using Word's macro "organizer"). The files were created using the same
version of Word I'm using, since the authors and I are working on the same
network, with the same updated version of the software. The document does
not appear corrupted in any way, and fast save is not enabled.
Today, for some reason, Word's track changes feature started acting weird.
While I'm editing an open document, Word suddenly forgets that the person
doing the editing (me) is also the person who's correcting those edits. So,
for example, consider what happens when Word autocorrects a straight
quotation mark into a curly quote; that's fine, since that's the way I've
got Autocorrect set, but today, Word started tracking the autocorrection as
a change, with a deletion line appearing through the straight quote that
just got replaced! (Friday, it simply made the replacement, marking that
replacement as an insertion but not leaving the straight quotes in the
file.)
Worse yet, even though I'm the guy named in the User settings and my name
appears when I hover the cursor over a change to reveal who made that
change, I can't always edit my own changes without that edit being tracked;
for example, I selected a word I'd entered not more than a second earlier,
typed a new word to replace it, and got a strikethrough on that old word,
with the deleted word appearing right in front of the inserted word.
Curioser still, I just tried to delete a comment I'd inserted, and Word
marked that action as a deletion--rather than simply deleting the comment,
as it used to do last week whenever I deleted my own comments. Weirdest of
all, this behavior seems to occur in some paragraphs, but not in all
paragraphs--even when the same styles have been applied to each paragraph,
when the language settings are identical, and when any visible setting I can
inspect is identical.
Help! Any hints, tips, or pointers to a good exorcist gratefully received.
<g>
--Geoff Hart, FERIC, Pointe-Claire, Quebec
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
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