Office 2004-Powerpoint problem

[mach42006]

I've run into a PowerPoint issue on my MBP running Leopard. As a student, I use powerpoint frequently, whether it's to fill in notes on slides supplied by my professors, or making my own presentations. When I'm typing, whether it's in Word or an IM or even a post here on these forums, I often use the 'Option + Delete' key combination to quickly delete entire words. When I use this combination in powerpoint (and only in powerpoint), the application freezes. I get the beach ball and have no choice but to force quit powerpoint, losing all of my work. I was working on a brief presentation tonight and had to reopen powerpoint 7 times, because without thinking about it, I naturally hit the combination to quickly delete a few words. I've posted this question a few months ago and didn't get any response. I finally got fed up with it tonight, and thought I would try again.

So does anybody know why 'Option + Delete' would cause ppt to lock up, and what I might be able to do about it? Or is it just one of the many Office bugs that I have to deal with? Hopefully I'll be upgrading soon and won't have to worry about it.

 

[Glenny2lappies]

Interesting; the hang happens here when using <option>+backspace

I normally use <command>+backspace to delete the word to the left. Ditto <command>+Delete to delete to the right.

Don't rush for Office 2008. It's rubbish. I'm working late tonight to repair the damage it's done to a set of presentations. All I did was open a PowerPoint 2003 file using PowerPoint 2008 and it screwed up the fonts, deleted a bunch of images, breaks diagrams, resets most objects to 'resize to fit', and deletes the content of whole pages.

Microsoft; the wheel's still turning but the hamster's playing with his "really koowl animation effect" that's far more interesting than turning out a working product.

Word 2008 doesn't work either -- too many irritating bugs. I daren't try Excel in case it messes things up.

So, I'm back running Office 2004 and seriously considering Pages/Keynote for my next project.

 

[portent]

I normally use <command>+backspace to delete the word to the left. Ditto <command>+Delete to delete to the right.

I presume you mean command-delete (⌘+⌫) and command-forward delete (⌘ + ⌦) since Macs don't normally have backspace keys?

Sorry to be pedantic but the juxtaposition of terminology really gets confusing in cases like these.

It seems that, in Office '04, Command-delete deletes words and option-delete doesn't do anything, whereas in most other Mac OS X apps, option-delete deletes a word, and command-delete does nothing.

 

[Les Kern]

Don't rush for Office 2008. It's rubbish.

And I saved about $100,000. I WAS going to purchase additional copies and upgrade our existing, but the Word (no pun there) is that is indeed rubbish. I will buy LICENSES for only the additional, then simply install 2004... all legal of course.

 

[Glenny2lappies]

And I saved about $100,000.

I wish more were like you then MS would have to listen. As it is, I sometimes get the feeling that they could put out any old crap and people would buy it. Oh, they did, and people bought it.

 

[mach42006]

It seems that, in Office '04, Command-delete deletes words and option-delete doesn't do anything, whereas in most other Mac OS X apps, option-delete deletes a word, and command-delete does nothing.

Actually in all of the Office '04 apps, I'm able to use option-delete to delete words, except in ppt where it locks up. I wasn't aware until I read your post that in Office apps, command-delete does the same thing, and fortunately, it works in ppt without crashing it. I didn't think to try that combination, since option-delete has worked in all my other apps, including Word.