Hitting it again usually stops it.

In the same Advanced Options dialog box, look for "Use the Insert key to control overtype mode." You can turn that one on or off, too. I have that one shut off, too.

Word is such a complex piece of software that most user have no idea how much they can control. Microsoft is a weird company, in that it thinks it understands how people use a word processor and sets all sorts of defaults when you install it. Often, if there's an annoying problem with Word as you use it, you can customize its options to make it work the way you want it too.

There are thousands of secrets to Word. One of the best ones is that the program has kept virtually every keyboard shortcut it ever made available through all of the version updates. Even the keyboard shortcuts for menus that no longer exist are still 100% functional in the latest version. Since I have always used keyboard shortcuts extensively, I discovered that when Word changed its menu structure in a past version. I was able to continue using my old two stroke keyboard shortcuts to keep using the old menu commands. That saved a lot of time for some things.

When I was writing that column in PC World, it was basically a tips column to help readers get the most out of that complicated piece of software. I never ran out of material. There's always a way to make Word work better than it does out of the box.

it is the default action because usually I would highlight the text to replace. If I make that mistake I just click undo and do it again. But that's on libre office so I am only assuming I understand what word is doing.

and am forced under duress to use Word on da Mac, or resort to a Dell

and I am always completely gobsmacked by how just plain awful the Mac version of Word is.

Love when I'm typing and the cursor jumps because I hit the touch pad, which highlights then deletes all text from where I'm typing to where the cursor landed.

Sadly, this often happens in a browser which may or may not be able to undo. Lost my mind a few times because of this.

cursed loudly. I ran up there. She's a professional writer, too. What she had done was to accidentally press Ctrl-A, which selects the entire document, and then pressed another key. Everything was gone from her screen. Now, Word automatically saves, so it's never a complete disaster, but she had stopped cold and swore loudly enough for me to come up. I said "What's wrong?' She told me that several hours of work was gone. I said, "Oh, really?"

Then I reached over and pressed Ctrl-Z and it was all back on her screen again. The number one rule when disaster strikes with a software program is to stop and do nothing at all. Then, you can figure out what happened and recover from it. She knew that, and nothing ended up being lost.

It's when you press ctrl-z and nothing happens that you begin to sweat!

and Save a document when something goes wrong. Oops. Wrong decision.

However, if you had turned on Word's Option to Automatically save backup copy, you can still recover. However, that option is off by default. It can be set to on in that same Advanced Options dialog box, but you have to scroll way down to find it.

Everyone should take the time to look through the Advanced options and customize the program to work they way they want it to work. Truly.

I do use auto-recovery (under Save tab in this version) - I have it set to save every 10 minutes - saved my butt just a couple of days ago as Word likes to crash when certain embedded content is edited.

know the software that well. Although it's easy to use, it's very, very complex underneath its interface. So, when something does go wrong, people have no idea what happened or what to do next.

I always advise people that if Word does something unexpected, they should go to Google and search for terms that describe what happened, exactly, mentioning the version of Word being used. Almost always a fix can be found quickly.

It's also important for people to be sure to update Word when updates are available. Fixing problems is an ongoing thing. At the very least, any Service Pack update should be installed as soon as it is available.

I've actually been using Microsoft Word since the mid 1980s, when the first version for MS-DOS appeared. I've written several books in Word, and have created tens of thousands of documents in it over the years. I've used every version of Word since 1.0 for MS-DOS, and have written about them all over those years for various magazines.

Now, it's the dominant word processor, having survived all of the word processor wars of the 80s and 90s. It continues to change and get new features and even completely new interfaces, but the core of the program still operates on the initial philosphy behind its design. The more you know about Word, the better it will work for you.

few minutes.

You can control how often it does that in the same Advanced Options dialog box, or turn off that feature (not recommended).

Learn it, live it, love it.

Stuff happens. Usually, you can Undo it. Usually, but not always, depending on how soon you use the Undo feature.

The above has happened to me a few times causing me to freak ... unnecessarily as it turns out.

Now, if I could only train myself not to rest my palm near the ctrl and fn buttons...

A foam wrist pad in front of the keyboard really helps if you have lazy hands. I've had that problem with the Ctrl and Alt keys, myself. I put a wrist rest in front of the keyboard and they went away completely. It raises your hand just enough to prevent pressing those keys accidentally.

But, still, turning off that option does help. I wish Word had an option that would let you not replace a selection by typing if the selection was more than two words. I still like selecting and typing in a replacement word while editing. However, I did turn the replace thing off and now just select and delete before typing the replacement word. It's not quite as convenient, but it does prevent larger deletions that take longer to recover from.