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Microsoft Word - backspace highlights links instead of deleting a single character

Anonymous
2020-09-22T05:18:02+00:00

I must have fumbled some shortcut on my keyboard but now I can't figure out what I did.

In microsoft word when i backspace on a link (ex. https://microsoft.com), instead of deleting the letter "m", word will highlight https://microsoft.com, my next click of backspace will delete the whole link.

What did not fix the issue,

  • office repair
  • re-installing office
  • restarting computer
  • running word in safe mode

I have no shortcut keys enabled

I checked in other office apps and do not have this issue

It is not a keyboard issue, i dont have keyboard macros set up or a fancy keyboard

This only happens when clicking backspace on a hyperlink, meaning if it is in plain text, I will not run into this issue. 

office 365 educational 

An additional observation is that if i have a path after the link https://microsoft.com/abc/xyz and i manually highlight the letter "z" and backspace it, I will delete it, but the subsequent backspace will remove the hyperlink aspect of the link. This is also wrong and not how it is supposed to behave. 

My theory: office has some "smart identify intent" feature which thinks that i want to delete the whole link. I want this disabled. 

The objective: Prior to whatever happened, if i hit backspace, i would delete a single letter. This is what i want to happen

a link in word, perfectly normal and working:

after clicking backspace one time

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2020-09-22T06:47:39+00:00

Hi Frank,

This is an expected behavior instead of an issue. Therefore, repairing Office, reinstalling Office, or starting Word in safe mode will not disable this feature.

And currently, there is no option for us to the disable the feature. As a workaround, you can modify the text of the hyperlink by right-clicking Edit Hyperlink, or use the cursor to select the text within the hyperlink range for editing.

We fully understand the inconvenience caused by this problem. Per your requirement, you may consider submitting feedback to Word UserVoice. Other users will also be able to vote on the same post so that it will increase the awareness coming from the related team. More votes will make the team more aware that this is a highly requested feature. Or you can also give feedback to the Microsoft Office development team directly, they read all feedback.

Highly appreciate your understanding.

Best regards,

Madoc

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  1. Suzanne S Barnhill 277.4K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2020-09-22T19:45:32+00:00

    In earlier versions of Word, up through Word 2010, there is a Compatibility/Layout Option to "Select entire field with first or last character." This is not enabled by default, so it is presumably disabled in later versions. In any case, it seems to apply only to selection, not deletion.

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  2. Stefan Blom 340.6K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2020-09-22T17:40:26+00:00

    To add to what Madoc Huang has said, this behavior is the same with all fields in Word. When pressing Backspace with the insertion point immediately to the right of a field, Word selects the whole field. (Hyperlinks are HYPERLINK fields in Word.)

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