Is there a setting in Word that would cause letters to type on top of one another?

[Laurie4b]

I just had a weird thing happen. I opened a file in Word and the words that had been there were all condensed into a black box at the beginning of the line. I opened a new file and started to type and the letters were all typing on top of one another. 

 

I am typing on the same laptop here, and when I tested my email, I can type there. This is just happening in Word. 

 

Any ideas as to what it might be?

 

Thanks!

[Alessandra]

Where did the file come from? Is it something that was an email attachment? I used to get email from one person who had some weird setting in her email program that caused Word files to be corrupted. not saying that is your case, but it is one thought.

[SparklyUnicorn]

They are literally one on top of the other or are they over typing? 

 

If it is over typing there should be something towards the bottom of word that says "insert" (or some abbreviation of that).  Click on that to deselect.

 

If not that, I don't know.

 

 

Edited January 28, 2016 by SparklyUnicorn

[Wheres Toto]

Could be the kerning - highlight the text, right click, choose Font, go to the Advanced tab and see if Condensed is chosen under Character Spacing.

 

It could also be the font - some artistic fonts act funny on someone else's computer.

 

it could also be a text box that isn't big enough to fit the text.

 

If it's happening in a new document - shut down Word completely, open it up again with a blank document.  If it still happens, sounds like a change was made to your "Normal" template, or some other template was set as your default for new documents.

 

[Laurie4b]

Thanks everyone. It was my own file that I had created. When I opened it, it was like that. Others were too. I shut down Word and restarted and it's okay. 

 

Just for the record, there was one space that accumulated all the letters on a line, so there was a weird shaped black box at the beginning of every line followed by nothing. Really odd. I do appreciate the help. 

[brehon]

Well, I was going to say that you probably hit the keys too fast and they jammed up near the paper.

 

But then I remembered what century I was in.

[El...]

There is one other (bad) potential explanation... is your virus protection up to date?  When's the last time it scanned?