Microsoft Word problem

[operastarlet]

Today I was in class typing up my notes on my ibook (g4), using microsoft word. Nothing else was open except microsoft word. After a little pause in typing I went to go back to typing again. All of a sudden, a black horizontal scrolling bar slid down the screen and the screen turned white and the scrolling bar just kept going down the screen. I tried everything to get it to work again. and then just had to hold down the power button. I lost all my work and was bewildered as to what happened?
I just checked for viruses and I just verified and repaired permissions the night before and had not even used my computer between that point until i brought my ibook to class.
any ideas here?

 

[Abstract]

Its a strange thing to happen, yes, but why does everyone post isolated incidences here?

If it happens again when you're typing in Word, there may be a problem. If it doesn't, you really have nothing to worry about.

 

[ingenious]

Its a strange thing to happen, yes, but why does everyone post isolated incidences here?

If it happens again when you're typing in Word, there may be a problem. If it doesn't, you really have nothing to worry about.

except for the fact he lost all of his work. he posted it here to get help. that post was obviously not helpful, telling him he shouldn't worry about it! come on guys, give the man some help.

 

[Awimoway]

I'm guessing that the “horizontal scrolling bar” might have been the view divider (I don't know the technical term), that can be activated by holding down on the little puckering lips in the top right of a document window (see the circled item in the attached picture). If one were to click and hold on that and then scroll down without stopping, it would probably look similar to what you described.

I cant explain why it happened, although I wonder if your trackpad had anything to do with it. You easily could have inadvertently clicked on the puckering lips without realizing you did so. When I use my iBook I often make accidental taps on the trackpad that mess me up. Do you have clicking, dragging, and/or drag lock activated on your trackpad? You might have had a click-lock snafu.

 

[operastarlet]

no that wasn't it.
It was a black line like you would see if you had a really old tv set and the picture was scrolling up and down. Know what I mean?

 

[Sparky's]

I know the black line you speak of, I have seen it on our Umax Clone, and it was the video card going ka-puttt. Has it happened at any other time? It almost sounds like it may be the video card. Sorry to hear you lost your data, you know you can set Word to "Auto Save" something like every 5 minutes or so. I think until you get this resolved, set up auto save, and check your display card.