Selecting a word in Word

[ChrisGreaves]

If what we would consider a word is followed by a space, Word's "word" includes that space.

This point has relevance to those of us who store our passwords in an MSWord document.

When the document contains an entry such as this:-

Untitled.png

the space character after the password string and the space after the PIN, both will cause MSWord to include the trailing space in the selection, and a mindless Ctrl-C will copy the string, with the trailing space, to the clipboard.
A subsequent Ctrl-V to paste into the password/pin box will usually cause a login error.
Cheers, Chris

[Charles Kenyon]

Chris,
When I select something in a document and it includes a space or punctuation or a paragraph mark I don't want, I hold down my shift key and press the left arrow to reduce the selection before I copy.

[ChrisGreaves]

When I select something in a document and it includes a space or punctuation or a paragraph mark I don't want, I hold down my shift key and press the left arrow to reduce the selection before I copy. I don't know what this has o do with AutoCorrect, though. Your screenshot looks like you may be storing the info in the second cell as AutoCorrect for ChrisGreaves.

Hello Charles, and thanks for the feedback.

Even before my Shift key stopped working, when my finger was already on the mouse, I would use the mouse double-click to select my password, My philosophy is closer to "don't keep switching between keyboard and mouse" rather than alienation of either device. And yes, regardless of whether I use mouse commands or keyboard commands to select a word, MSWord interprets the command and asks that a "word" be selected. A password delimited by a space will require removal of that trailing space.

The screen shot was part of a table, my passwords.doc table, which has a column for the account, a column for the web url, for the username of the account, the password and pin, and so on. I chose to show only two cells of an account mocked up especially for the post!

Cheers, Chris

[Charles Kenyon]

It does have to do with "Smart Selection." I'm not sure when MS came up with the idea of including the space upon a double click. In my Ribbon word I uncheck the advanced editing options shown and the extra space is not selected.

00 deleteme 1.png

These should be under Tools > Options in the menu versions. I think both were there in Word 2000 but am not sure.
It may only be one of these that needs changing; I did not check.

[HansV]

This is now a new topic.

[ChrisGreaves]

It may only be one of these that needs changing; I did not check.

Hi Charles,

Untitled.png

In Word2003 I have both those options checked OFF, and Word2003 selects the trailing space, regardless of whether I use a double-click or a Shift-Ctrl-RightArrow (using my right-hand shift key that works!)
Cheers, Chris