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
    2020-05-29T05:27:06+00:00

    Hi there,

    I have the exact same issue. I am using an iPad mini 5 (iPad OS 13.5), OneNote 16.37 and an external bluetooth keyboard (B.O.W HB199). This issue is exclusively limited to OneNote: all other applications, including Word, Excel and PowerPoint, work perfectly fine. I have already tried reinstalling OneNote and the issue persists.

    It seems that OneNote doesn't work well with the Keyboards Accessibility features. When Full Keyboard Access is enabled, the space bar is associated with the default Activate command and when pressed it redirects the focus on the Search field rather than inserting a space. When Full Keyboard Access is disabled, the behaviour of the space bar goes back to normal.

    I need to keep the Full Keyboard Access ON at all times and this issue prevents me from using OneNote with an external bluetooth keyboard, making the app totally useless to me. Changing the Command associated with the spacebar would somehow solve the problem, but since this only affects OneNote among hundreds of other applications, it is not worth changing my working behaviour.

    Please let us know if you can reproduce the bug and if you intend to fix it, otherwise I will just have to find an alternative software for note taking.

    Thank you.

    D

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-05-06T21:22:59+00:00

    Hi DanielMDax,

    Thanks for reaching out in the Community. I hope you're having a great day, in spite of the issues you're experiencing in Office for iPad apps. Let's try to address your concern.

    To cross out the possibility that the issue is caused by the Office apps, you may try to reinstall Word and OneNote on your device to have a fresh copy of the apps. If that won't address the issue. It's best to contact the external keyboard's manufacturer for technical support. This could be a limitation on their device or a settings needs to be configured.

    Should you have any other concern, don't hesitate to post back in the Community.

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