# Word 365 - Entire page of text disappeared with a few keystrokes
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-365-entire-page-of-text-disappeared-with-a-few-keystrokes/973935
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 28, 2022, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-365-entire-page-of-text-disappeared-with-a-few-keystrokes/973935 "2022-10-28T19:45:16Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2022, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-365-entire-page-of-text-disappeared-with-a-few-keystrokes/973935/1 "2022-10-28T19:45:16Z")
Today, I was typing on the third page of a document and looked away from the screen for a moment for the time it takes to type 3 or 4 characters. When I looked back up, I was staring at the bottom of page 2. Fortunately, undo did its thing and page 3 was recovered.
I wasn’t near backspace or delete but it’s possible (I think unlikely) I made have nicked Ctrl when using Shift. This page is only text but the others have some images. What keystrokes could do that?
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### Author:  [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2022, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-365-entire-page-of-text-disappeared-with-a-few-keystrokes/973935/2 "2022-10-28T19:52:34Z")
Ctrl+A selects all. You do that and then type something else it’s going to replace everything.
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### Author:  [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2022, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-365-entire-page-of-text-disappeared-with-a-few-keystrokes/973935/3 "2022-10-28T20:09:45Z")
I just tried it and that would overwrite the entire document. This was just the last of 3 pages. I’m back at my desk now and I _think_ I was writing PushB. including that period.
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### Author:  [@Manduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manduck)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2022, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-365-entire-page-of-text-disappeared-with-a-few-keystrokes/973935/4 "2022-10-28T22:45:43Z")
If you somehow pressed shift-ctrl-end you could delete everything from your current position to the end
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### Author:  [@Kron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kron)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2022, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-365-entire-page-of-text-disappeared-with-a-few-keystrokes/973935/5 "2022-10-28T23:13:23Z")
Laptop or desktop with a standard keyboard? I can’t think of anything on a standard keyboard layout, but laptops can have all sorts of multipurpose keys.
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### Author:  [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2022, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-365-entire-page-of-text-disappeared-with-a-few-keystrokes/973935/6 "2022-10-29T00:35:03Z")
> [@Manduck](#):
>
> If you somehow pressed shift-ctrl-end …
Good guess but I was at the bottom of the text and nowhere near end, or home for the opposite effect.
> [@Kron](#):
>
> Laptop or desktop with a standard keyboard?
It’s an old Belkin split-anti-carpal desktop keyboard. And I mean old, PS/2 but I like it. I don’t think it has programmable keys but I’m not at the office now and can’t really remember what all it has or doesn’t have.
It is unnerving to see work just disappear without knowing the reason.
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2022, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-365-entire-page-of-text-disappeared-with-a-few-keystrokes/973935/7 "2022-10-29T01:37:04Z")
If you have for some reason selected some text, and then typed a random character, like a space, the text gets replaced by that character. When my computer is slow and typing CTL-c gets recognized as just c, this happens all the time.
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### Author:  [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2022, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-365-entire-page-of-text-disappeared-with-a-few-keystrokes/973935/8 "2022-10-29T03:18:51Z")
Yea, that’s similar to what @AlsoNamedBort suggested. But I really only typed 6-8 characters and since I _think_ I was typing PushB. (short for bush button, in case anyone was wondering). I’m a relatively accurate typist, at least average, that’s why I felt confident to look out my window for a moment. The only special key I was near was Ctrl [edit: and Shift] and it would be really, really strange for me to touch it by accident.
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### Author:  [@ZonexandScout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZonexandScout)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2022, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-365-entire-page-of-text-disappeared-with-a-few-keystrokes/973935/9 "2022-10-29T12:49:57Z")
My late mother was a journalist in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, consistently using an old manual Underwood typewriter. In the 90s, she started using a (older even at the time) word processor. In the 00s, she had to switch to a real desktop computer when the word processor could no longer be repaired.
I got a constant string of complaints from her that her text (doc or e-mail) would just disappear. It took many, many visits and several new keyboards to get her to believe that she was accidentally hitting keys like “Home,” “Del,” and so forth. Her style of typing with high arched fingers and the extended features of the keyboard (when compared with a typewriter) caused her to type wildly and hit just about every key available from time to time. I watched her type a paragraph and accidentally reposition the cursor, change from “Insert,” and then type over everything she had just written. For months, she absolutely refused to believe it had anything to do with the way she was typing.
Anybody need some gently used, but perfectly functional, keyboards?
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2022, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-365-entire-page-of-text-disappeared-with-a-few-keystrokes/973935/10 "2022-10-29T17:32:19Z")
I would believe that someone who learned to type on a typewriter would be more nimble on the keyboard.
I tend to have more trouble with laptop keyboards. Some key combination selects the line I am typing and moves it to the beginning.