Good evening, I use Office Word 2019, so far I haven't had any problems with it. I had a document open with text written in it and I wanted to press the control key and the S key as I usually do to save, but I think I pressed the wrong keys and all the text disappeared from the document, there was no longer an undo or redo option, they were grayed out and I couldn't even write anything in the window, that blink line was missing, or whatever it's called, it doesn't exist, and up where view, home, insert, etc. were, I could select them, but most of the functions were grayed out, that is, inaccessible, so the document wasn't locked, because I could go into the options, but it was like another window was open in which I couldn't write, and the text was gone, I closed the document and it didn't ask me whether to save or not. The document still exists, in its location, but the text is gone, and it's not like I saved and closed it, that the last changes appear to me before this error happened. That is, it was last saved this morning, modified, if I were to say that I deleted it and it was saved, it now appears to me as the last change, which did not happen.

What could this be about?
What do you think happened?
What keys did I press?

That I only used my left hand and the keys on the left side only, besides the control key and the S key, nothing else! I apologize for the length of the text and I would appreciate some help or at least an explanation about what happened, so that I know in the future what I have to do to avoid this and not have something like this happen again, to be more careful about what keys I press then and when I press even these simple keys to save the document, because if you forget with a little carelessness now I have a lot to do, because I didn't know that there were such very dangerous key combinations, even in Word Thank you very much, have a peaceful evening everyone!

What happens if you press Alt-F9 with the document open?

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Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

I have no idea on what might have happened but you can get a list of the built-in keyboard commands by running the following line of vba code which produces a new document containing all the keyboard shortcuts in a table. You can then paste this table into Excel and filter out the blanks in the key column to see all the possible keyboard shortcuts. There is over 250 to choose from.
You may discover that keys around the intended keys got hit unintentionally. For example Ctrl+A then any key would replace your content with a single letter. If you then followed it with Ctrl+S then you just saved the doc with the removed content.

It can also be easy to hit the wrong key when going for Ctrl. Different keyboards put Ctrl in different places and your little finger can hit Fn or Alt or Windows key when reaching for the actual key.

You could also have had custom keyboard actions running macros depending on which templates or addins were running at the time.

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Andrew Lockton
Chrysalis Design, Melbourne Australia

Hello, nothing happend, but I closed that document already. I have tried on other document to try this command and I press it Alt+F9, but nothing happend. What is this command and what is doing? Alt + F9? Thanks

This would be in the original, problem, file. It toggles display of field codes. It is possible that you pressed Ctrl+F9 instead of Ctrl+S, putting your entire document into a field.

• My Thesis document becomes empty but the file size is not changed!
• All texts and figure suddenly became a field code

Dealing with Fields in Microsoft Word

Hello, I dont know where and how to do that, about vba code. I am novice with computers. It wasnt Ctrl + A, Or to save, because as I said, was unable to undo or to wrote again in that document, all commands was grey, but I was able to use document, wasnt frozen or something. Was nothing written and no option to select or write something or even be able to undo or redo. I have tried again to replicate de experiment but not working again, I dont know what was that. I have a normal keyboard, no special one, no special keys. No custom keyboard sir. I dont understand, what do you mean by "custom keyboard actions running macros depending on which templates or addins were running at the time."? And as I said, was no frozen or blocked word, no text, no able to type again in the panel and all options from Home, Insert, View, etc, was gray, but I was able to navigate between tabs, like File, home, insert, design, just couln`d select anything from it, etc. So it was not only select text and press other key, and all text dissapered, because in this case I should was able to undo or redo, or cancel text/ action, right? And what "custom keyboard actions" can give me this problem? What thing was able to do that? What was this strange error in the end? Thanks.

You can attach the document here, if you wish, for us to look at.
Attach a Sample File Demonstrating the Problem - Here's How

I don't know why all commands would become greyed out unless it changed the document to Viewing mode (you can test this via a button at the top right of your screen). But that command by itself wouldn't remove the content from the file.

If all the text has disappeared from the document, there are two possibilities:
1. It is still there but hidden
2. It has been deleted and then the document was saved to make it permanent

What is the size of the file? Is it the same size as an empty document or does the file size imply that it has content?

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Andrew Lockton
Chrysalis Design, Melbourne Australia

Hello, sorry for late post. It was not in Viewing mode. So I exclude that. Wasnt save it, because when you save, you can give undo, in my case was not possible to undo, redo, ctl z, etc. And also not select all, because when select all, text became all selected, and was not my case. I have tried to replicate this problem as experiment, but not succesed like it was in my situation. It was not deleted, because if you delete some text, you still able to use all options from home, insert, design, view, etc. I have not check de size, I let the document as it was, but closed. i really want to know what happend and what kind of keys combination did I pressed, to know how to prevent in the futhure

One speculation, the same one Paul had in the first response is explored here: My Thesis document becomes empty but the file size is not changed!

Was the content in your file inside a table?

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Andrew Lockton
Chrysalis Design, Melbourne Australia

Hello Charles, I used only my left hand, so was not possible to press alt + f9
Hello Andrew, no, it was only text