Block Text

Hi Mia

Thank you for reaching out to the Q&A forum.

Firstly, verify whether the document is protected. Check if it is opened in Protected View, or review the file permissions by right‑clicking the file in Finder, selecting Get Info, and confirming that Locked is not selected under General. Next, disable any active add‑ins to rule out potential conflicts, and ensure that Microsoft Office is updated to the latest version.

Also, please try restarting your Mac, as many users have reported that this step helps restore the ability to select (block) text in certain cases.

You can also try alternative text‑selection methods in Word for Mac. To select a section of text, click at the beginning of the content, scroll if necessary, then hold the Shift key and click at the end of the desired passage. To select a single word, double‑click the word. To select an entire sentence, hold the Command and click anywhere within the sentence. For selecting a full paragraph, triple‑click anywhere in the paragraph.

If the above steps are not applicable to your situation, please reply with your macOS version, Office/Word version, and when this issue first occurred, so I can assist you further.

If you need to use Word immediately, you may consider using Word Online as a temporary workaround.

Looking forward to your feedback.

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.  

The technique of dragging to select text is an OS service supported in the programs which require it. It usually fails for either or both of 2 common causes. Please see this existing Answer as well as the link within it. That linked thread describes several professional selection techniques which are considerably more efficient & accurate than dragging... and they work even when dragging fails: Select Text