Spacebar not working on Word/OneNote (iPad)

Anonymous
2020-05-05T23:52:09+00:00

Hello. I am using an iPad Pro with an external Magic Keyboard, and I came to notice (quite quickly) that on the Microsoft Office suite the spacebar is not working when pressed/clicked on the keyboard. So, I come to ask, is there a way to solve this? Because currently it is kind of useless to use Word/OneNote and not be able to press the spacebar and have a space between words.

I think its possible that the problem is present since the Magic Keyboard is brand new hardware and Microsoft Office Suite may not recognize it yet. And it is a big deal and problem for note taking or word processing in general.

EDIT: Spacebar works properly only when pressing Option + Spacebar, quite annoying to have to do a command just to correctly use the spacebar, seems like a bug to me.

The problem is present on an iPad Pro 2020 11” with the Apple Magic Keybard (Spanish - ISO) running iPad OS 13.4.1and the latest OneNote/Word version.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | iOS

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-09-16T14:41:19+00:00

    This solved the problem for me! I was having the same issue with my new iPad Air 5 with Logitech keyboard. Thank you.

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-06-29T19:31:45+00:00

    Ch’ello!

    I had the same issue with my use of the space bar while using One Note. After playing around with a few keyboard settings on both my MacBook (Monterey v12.4) and iPad (v15.5) I was able to prevent the space bar from focusing on Search; but I still had to use the Shift key to get a space in text. Then I found something that fixed it.

    My Fix:

    In your iPad settings go to Accessibility>Keyboards>Full Access Keyboards (on)>Commands. Scroll down in the Commands modal until you see the Interaction section (3rd from the top). The first listed command is ‘Activate’. I had an active command in there; so I just cleared the keyboard assignment and ¡voila! FIXED

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-04-11T08:44:55+00:00

    Hi,

    In spite all the WORKAROUND solutions people have provided, this is 100% a Microsoft One Note issue. I am able to use my keyboard without any problems in any other note taking apps, without having to change my command mapping or even worse deactivate full keyboard access, which is important for Universal Control. FYI is not only a spacebar issue, the arrow keys do not work either. When I click arrow keys it moves the focus of the keyboard to another section of the app, render it sill imposible to type.

    This issue was open 2 years ago, and I wonder what good is to us to have new features in One Note if we can not even write a single note. Please give some priority to fixing this.

    Problem happening on an iPad pro 2021 12.9" iOS 15.4.1 using Universal control and pairing my keyboard directly to the iPad.

    Thanks!

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-04-10T15:06:36+00:00

    You can still keep full access on just change the commands and what you want them to be. For example the space was the “enter” action as default i changed the return button to be the “enter” action you can do this with all the commands.

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-04-04T17:09:36+00:00

    That did it!!! Thank you!

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