Letters appear from right to left

[stephan54]

T60 with German windows and Office 2003.

Sometimes when using Outlook and typing in an email address. the letters appear from right to left. Restarting or shutting down Outlook usually helps.

The system is protected by AVG, Adware and MS Window Defender, so I guess it is not because of a virus.

My wife is a fast typist, so she might hit some unwanted key combinations (which one?)

I would appreciate any ideas what causes this strange behaviour.

Stephan

[Nick Y]

Try the Keyboard Customiser Utility (All Programs/ ThinkVantage); you may have the keyboard set incorrectly. Also the Control Panel: Regional and Language Options.

I hope this helps.

Nick

[stephan54]

Try the Keyboard Customiser Utility (All Programs/ ThinkVantage); you may have the keyboard set incorrectly. Also the Control Panel: Regional and Language Options.

I hope this helps.

Nick

Thank you, I will look into it later today, what makes it difficult is that it only happens occasionally. I want to find out what triggers it.

Stephan

[Nick Y]

Another thought, as you say it is intermittent:

From http://zsigri.tripod.com/fontboard/wordpad.html, re wordpad, which you may be using as your text editor for Outlook.

======================
Switching Directions

Press Ctrl + right Shift to change the direction of a paragrah from left-to-right to right-to-left, or press Ctrl + left Shift to set it back to left-to-right.

======================

Nick

[stephan54]

Another thought, as you say it is intermittent:

From http://zsigri.tripod.com/fontboard/wordpad.html, re wordpad, which you may be using as your text editor for Outlook.

======================
Switching Directions

Press Ctrl + right Shift to change the direction of a paragrah from left-to-right to right-to-left, or press Ctrl + left Shift to set it back to left-to-right.

======================

Nick

Thanks again Nick,

I have installed the multi-language cd-rom of Office 2003, but all the settings are for German. In German I cannot duplicate the behaviour when pushing those keys. The box allowing right to left typing is not checked, notwithstanding I think your suggestion is very close to solution. Probably one more key combination pushed to change languages.
When it happens again, I will try out the Control Shift combination first.

Stephan