Can't delete text box in PowerPoint

Anonymous

I've recently had a problem deleting text boxes in PowerPoint. I'm able to select the box by clicking on the box perimeter (which changers the little circles and squares at the perimeter from open to solid, as it should). But when I hit delete, it deletes the last text character within the box, rather than the box itself. I also can't copy the box. When I select the box and hit command-C, I hear a little whish, signifying (I suppose) an disallowed action. The boxes in question are not part of a slide background. This problem does not occur with pictures.

I've found a workaround which is to select the box differently, namely by dragging the cursor around the box with the mouse button held down. Then I can (sometimes) delete or copy it. Still looking for a real fix.

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Anonymous

I stumbled on a fix today.

Under system preferences, chose Keyboard, then chose Shortcuts, and then at the bottom under Full Keyboard Access, click the "All controls" radio button.

Previously, the "Text boxes and lists only" radio button was selected. I can recreate the problem by clicking this other radio button, i.e. the fix is fully reversible. I don't think I ever touched either of these buttons before yesterday.

I believe this fix completely resolves for me the issues with selecting text boxes in PowerPoint.

Note that it's very puzzling that a system tabbing option should have anything to do with selecting text boxes in PowerPoint. I expect there is still an underlying bug.

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43 additional answers

Anonymous

2014-02-26T13:37:47+00:00

Hi there,

I have EXACTLY the same issues described by Ralph and Steve!

=> New MacBook Pro (end 2013), running 10.9.2 since today (problems started with 10.9.1).

=> account installed from Time Machine volume (account coming from a Macbook Pro 2010 under 10.9.1). This Macbook never experienced these problems.

=> I completely deleted Office 2011 and reinstalled it. I use version 14.3.9

=> copy/paste works with right button clicks.

I hope that you will find a solution soon :-)

Vince.
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Anonymous

2014-02-26T23:36:16+00:00

Thanks Vince. Like you, I find that right clicking seems to work okay even though left clicking doesn't.

Another observation: I can't nudge the position of text boxes using the arrow keys except within a ~1 second time window after the left click. For this, I could really use a work-around, but haven't found one.
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Bob Jones AKA CyberTaz MVP 437.7K Reputation points

2014-04-15T22:26:54+00:00

Interesting... I get no difference in behavior regardless of which option I select -- but I'm running OS X 10.6.8 so it may be that an issue was introduced by Mavericks.

The 14.4.1 update to Office was just released last week. See if there's any difference with that applied as well as the 10.9.2 OS X update if you haven't yet applied it.

One point that may have been overlooked earlier... If the Placeholder has content the expected behavior is to clear the text from the box but leave the box in place. I believe this is by design. If the Placeholder is empty delete will remove the box. This behavior is different than what happens with a Text Box, which is a Drawing Object you create using the Text Box tool or by double-clicking on a blank area of a slide. Deleting a Text Box removes the object & content along with it. I'm embarrassed to admit that I neglected to get clarification of which you're actually dealing with :-}
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Anonymous

2014-04-16T13:23:12+00:00

Cool!!! This fix works for me (10.9.2 and Office 14.4.1).

Thanks a lot Ralph!!

Vince.
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