Share via

Double-click and drag text selection STILL broken, 2 years later

Anonymous
2019-09-12T22:38:06+00:00

Every year or so, I just feel the need to report this ongoing bug that was randomly introduced in 365 at some point:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_powerpoint-mso_mac-mso_365hp/double-click-and-drag-still-broken-in-1616/f3b9bdd2-d55c-47e3-9bde-6f86b4ab114e?page=1

Another year, many updates later, and the problem is still there in 16.29.

As I posted in that link (and the one before it), for this behavior, Powerpoint behaves differently from every other application on the Mac, even other MS products (the ones I use most, Word and Excel, work fine).

I doubt this will get fixed, because it matches the Windows behavior (same code base and all), but I thought I'd just post this here again to see what happens.

Microsoft 365 and Office | PowerPoint | For home | Windows

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments

12 answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. John Korchok 224.3K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2019-09-12T23:06:31+00:00

    But you reported it fixed in 16.20. Why didn't you stick with that version if this issue is that important to you?

    Microsoft isn't monitoring these pages for bug reports. To report a problem, please click on the small smiley-face icon in the upper right corner of the program interface. Choose Tell Us What Can Be Better and report this issue in detail.

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2019-09-12T23:14:47+00:00

    It worked correctly in 16.20...until I simply restarted my computer.  I have no idea what happened there.

    I reported it to MS already ages ago with no response.  I marked this as a discussion to see if anybody else is seeing this and if it's as annoying to them as it is to me.

    2 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  3. John Korchok 224.3K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2019-09-12T23:25:38+00:00

    Maybe it feels better to post on a public forum, but it doesn't solve the issue. It took nearly 30 years to change Microsoft's position on right-to-left languages in Office for Mac. The process is glacial.

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2019-09-13T07:41:09+00:00

    Hi Strells,

    Just to make sure I have the correct steps to reproduce the issue, here’s what I did.

    Place the mouse cursor anywhere in a paragraph, then click twice, the second click will select the word and then without releasing the mouse click, drag the mouse to select other words. I have prepared a GIF for your reference.

    This behavior is same in 16.28, 16.29 and 16.30.

    If I misunderstood the case, please provide detail steps to reproduce the issue.

    Thanks,

    Neha

    0 comments
  5. Jim G 134K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2019-09-13T14:58:07+00:00

    Hi

    In the Insider Fast update of version 16.30 when I double click a word in PowerPoint and then drag, the moused-over words are selected. The usual progression is that this fix will find its way to Insider Slow the first week of next month, and then into the general release build around the second week of next month.

    If you don't mind working with pre-release (actually pre-beta) software, you can join the Insider Fast program and get 16.30 today

    Office Insiders

    0 comments