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Old 03-29-2023, 02:41 PM
Bennrat Bennrat is offline F4 only repeats the last letter (Word 2019) Windows 10 F4 only repeats the last letter (Word 2019) Office 2019
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Default F4 only repeats the last letter (Word 2019)

Hello!




After being upgraded to Word 2019 I face the problem, that F4 doesn't work satisfying anymore. Before the upgrade I used F4 in Word very often: it repeated not only the last command but whole words. For example if you had typed 'Stargate 51' it would repeat 'Stargate 51' at the point, you would set the cursor. In the new Version of Word 2019 it only will repeat the last letter: '1'. That's a big loss for many purposes. Has anybody faced the same problem? Does anybody know a solution and can help?


Thank you very much in advance


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Old 03-30-2023, 03:05 PM
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Guessed Guessed is offline F4 only repeats the last letter (Word 2019) Windows 10 F4 only repeats the last letter (Word 2019) Office 2016
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In my experience it seems to depend on how fast you can type. It appears that the F4 key repeats the last second or two of actions so if your last keypress was a couple of seconds after the prior one then you will only get one character but if you blast out the word then F4 will give you multiple characters.

I have no idea on how to get Word to prolong the F4 'recording' of keystrokes but it may be configurable.

To get repeatable F4 behaviour I would copy the text and paste it once, then press F4 to repeat the paste action.
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Old 03-31-2023, 12:31 PM
kilroyscarnival kilroyscarnival is offline F4 only repeats the last letter (Word 2019) Windows 10 F4 only repeats the last letter (Word 2019) Office 2021
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I ran a few tries, and it does repeat more than one word, which I never quite realized. I think, though, that the following conditions will interrupt the flow for repeating:
  • Inserting a paragraph mark
  • Backspacing to correct a mistake
  • Starting by highlighting existing text and overtyping it
  • Any time auto-correct or auto-complete is employed
  • For some reason, when I typed an apostrophe (men's rather than mens broke the repeat spell at the apostrophe)

I managed to get a few lines out in one go, but another time realized that auto-correct had perhaps engaged and I hadn't even noticed.

Perhaps try disengaging all auto-correct options in File/Options/Proofing, then see if you can repeat as much as you need. I guess I tend to just highlight and copy anything longer than a word, though if i'm pasting repeatedly, F4 is definitely my go-to.
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Old 04-01-2023, 05:00 AM
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Stefan Blom Stefan Blom is offline F4 only repeats the last letter (Word 2019) Windows 11 F4 only repeats the last letter (Word 2019) Office 2021
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Many factors are at play here. As Andrew (Guessed) said, typing speed may be one such factor.

However, I vaguely recall that there was a specific issue that caused Undo to do only one character at a time. I don't remember the details at the moment, but I will post back when/if I can find out more. :-)
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Old 04-01-2023, 09:23 AM
Bennrat Bennrat is offline F4 only repeats the last letter (Word 2019) Windows 10 F4 only repeats the last letter (Word 2019) Office 2019
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Thank you very much for your answers!


It's absolutely true, that it depends on how fast you type in 'Word' how much letters or words F4 repeats, because normaly F4 repeats everything you have written in the last 2-4 seconds. This works still great in my Home office Word 13 -Version. Whereas no matter how fast I write, or which auto-correction options I have - in my Word 19-Version in my Office I always get only the last letter.


Off course there are workarounds, but I used that F4 function very often and I hoped that someone had the same experience with the Word 2019 version and there might be a way to adjust that function . .


VG


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Old 04-01-2023, 11:35 AM
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Stefan Blom Stefan Blom is offline F4 only repeats the last letter (Word 2019) Windows 11 F4 only repeats the last letter (Word 2019) Office 2021
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In this forum, there is an eleven year old thread that mentions footer content as a factor:

https://www.msofficeforums.com/word/...-function.html

In other words, if the footer has (specific) content, it affects Undo. I don't remember if this was confirmed, but if it was, it should be fixed by now.
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