# Any idea how my kid managed to erase all my work?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-idea-how-my-kid-managed-to-erase-all-my-work/395044>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 8, 2007, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-idea-how-my-kid-managed-to-erase-all-my-work/395044 "2007-03-08T02:06:52Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\
**Post date:** [March 8, 2007, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-idea-how-my-kid-managed-to-erase-all-my-work/395044/1 "2007-03-08T02:06:52Z")

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I was typing away on a form to post to a discussion board. I had typed several paragraphs. My kid came to the keyboard, reached up and pressed a single button. And everything I had typed into the fields on this form just disappeared.

Any idea how he did this? And, though I doubt it, any idea if I can get it back? I’m keeping the window up just in case.

-FrL-

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**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\
**Post date:** [March 8, 2007, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-idea-how-my-kid-managed-to-erase-all-my-work/395044/2 "2007-03-08T02:16:18Z")

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Does the form have a “Reset Fields” button or link? He might have managed to hit the hotkey for that.

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**Author:** ![FordPrefect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e99b99/32.png) [@FordPrefect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FordPrefect)\
**Post date:** [March 8, 2007, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-idea-how-my-kid-managed-to-erase-all-my-work/395044/3 "2007-03-08T02:18:42Z")

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maybe too obvious, but \<ctrl\>-z to get it back?

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**Author:** ![Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speaker_for_the_Dead)\
**Post date:** [March 8, 2007, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-idea-how-my-kid-managed-to-erase-all-my-work/395044/4 "2007-03-08T02:19:09Z")

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Maybe he hit F5 and refreshed the screen? It wiped out the beginning of this message, when I experimented.

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**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\
**Post date:** [March 8, 2007, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-idea-how-my-kid-managed-to-erase-all-my-work/395044/5 "2007-03-08T05:19:33Z")

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Hitting escape in an editbox clears it out. You can generally recover your work with ctrl-z.

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**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\
**Post date:** [March 8, 2007, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-idea-how-my-kid-managed-to-erase-all-my-work/395044/6 "2007-03-08T05:24:18Z")

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[QUOTE=ultrafilter]  
Hitting escape in an editbox clears it out.  
[/QUOTE]

Not in Firefox, it doesn’t.

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**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\
**Post date:** [March 8, 2007, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-idea-how-my-kid-managed-to-erase-all-my-work/395044/7 "2007-03-08T06:26:07Z")

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Does your software have a single key command that acts like Ctrl + N so that you have not actually lost anything, but simply have a new screen (with no data) overlaying the screen on which you were working?