[Dropped] Can't edit files; space key is not responding

[LinuspåLinjen]

First of all I would like to do this in swedish: anyway now I can't Edit my own files, the space key is stuck. Could it be some cut&paste I've done or what? I wrote a hole book with this service before, but now...Please help - someone out there

[floris v]

Are other keys stuck as well? In that case, you are probably trying to edit a paragraph that exceeds the paragraph size limit of 64 Kb characters that still exists in AOO. If you copied from the internet, it's possible that you have a large swath of text with line breaks instead of carriage returns. Turn on display of non-printing characters to find out what's the problem.

[RoryOF]

To eliminate the case of a broken keyboard, can you type spaces in a plain text editor, such as notepad?

[MrProgrammer]

… the space key is stuck …

Apparently not. You are using the space key to type your post. In Writer use Tools → AutoCorrect Options → Options and uncheck these three items:

202506180908.gif (52.04 KiB) Viewed 1600 times

My personal recommendation is to uncheck every item in this dialog. This prevents features you might not understand from interfering with your text. Later, if you decide you do want a specific feature you can go back and enable that one. There are a thousand questions in the forum about unexpected behavior caused by one or more of the AutoCorrect options. Writer is operating correctly but people don't understand why it's making changes for them. Perhaps that is the case here too.

If you are using spaces and/or line breaks to align your text in the Writer document, this is the wrong approach. Use styles which set paragraph indentation, tabs, and spacing. Read about styles in Help → Index or in User Guides (PDF) or searching for topics about this in the Writer Forum. Many have found Writer for students to be quite helpful in understanding how to use styles and other features of Writer. Learning how to use styles will save you time after you understand this feature. It will be much easier than trying to make alignments with spaces and line breaks.

If you need any additional assistance attach a document demonstrating the difficulty (remove confidential information then use Post Reply, not Quick Reply, and don't attach a picture instead of the document itself). I will not help further unless you attach a Writer document. Explain exactly what you are trying to do when the space key is not responding.

If this solved your problem please go to your first post use the Edit ✏️ button and add [Solved] to the start of the Subject field. Select the green checkmark icon at the same time.