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I have a problem in the email-editor in Outlook 2016. Normally I can use ctrl-left arrow and ctrl-right arrow to move the cursor in the editor by a word. This works in every text field on my PC except in Outlook.

I am at a loss to what setting can influence this. In every other Office program the ctrl-left arrow and ctrl-right arrow function like they should. Its a Windows 10 PC, Outlook 2016 is of the Office 365 click-to-run variety and up to date.

RS Finance
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  • You may just test in Outlook safe mode (outlook /safe) to see whether it was caused due to a problematic add-in. – Steve Fan Apr 23 '18 at 02:00
  • @SteveFan it did, see my answer. – RS Finance Apr 23 '18 at 06:21
  • Oops! Missed that. Glad to hear that the problem was resolved :) – Steve Fan Apr 23 '18 at 07:12
  • Thanks, this was really anoying. Those MS office tools are really evolving to the worse. Maybe its good for some people that don't know anything else. but for us having to use them just sometimes its super annoying. I just had a deep dive into excel where all the intuitve keys weren't working anymore either. – U.V. Oct 04 '21 at 12:36

5 Answers5

65

In my case that was an issue caused be the new "Read Aloud" functionality, as suggested in this thread on Microsoft's site.

You can toggle this feature by:

  • clicking on "Read Aloud" in "Review" menu.
  • using the Ctrl+Alt+Space.

A control panel shows up or disappears at the top right corner of the edited message. When it disappears, the Ctrl+Left and Ctrl+Right keys work as expected.

BtF
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    WTF, that actually worked! Thanks, but what a surprising "feature" :) – Eyvind Nov 07 '18 at 11:30
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    How utterly weird - but this **just works**. Thankyou! – Morgan Skinner Mar 27 '19 at 14:23
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    That the crap, Microsoft??! I've been experiencing this perplexing issue for a couple of days and sure enough, clicking "Read Aloud" in the "Review" ribbon sorted it. – Matty Brown Jul 03 '19 at 14:28
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    If you use read aloud the Ctrl+Left and Ctrl+Right key are used for rewind and fast forward so they capture the keys ahead of Outlook. I have to explicitly close the Read Aloud panel to get back to normal – David Levy Jan 08 '20 at 17:20
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    I had this, except the Read aloud control panel was not visible, as in "not enabled". I used ctr-alt-space to turn it on, and the off again. Then ctrl-left/right started working. Bizarre. – David Balažic Sep 14 '21 at 16:52
14

It's much simpler than all that!

Ctrl+Alt+Space bar toggles the reading stuff.

It's all too easy to hit that combination by accident!

phuclv
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NewsScaper
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    That was it for me! That reading aloud toolbar was not showing, but it must have been interfering with keyboard shortcuts. I made it visible again by Ctrl+Alt+Space, then closed it and shortcuts started to work again. – Jakub Januszkiewicz Sep 16 '19 at 07:08
  • If you use read aloud the Ctrl+Left and Ctrl+Right key are used for rewind and fast forward so they capture the keys ahead of Outlook. I have to explicitly close the Read Aloud panel to get back to normal – David Levy Jan 08 '20 at 17:20
  • This is a less detailed duplicate of [this answer](https://superuser.com/a/1371263/86847) from a month earlier. – Jean-François Corbett Aug 14 '20 at 07:12
6

Apperently this can be fixed in the following way:

  • Close Outlook
  • Start Outlook in the Safe mode
  • Close Outlook
  • Start Outlook normally.

And its fixed.

RS Finance
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    Wow, that solved my problem too! I wonder which add-in causes this, but it was really annoying. Thanks for the follow-up!! – ercan Apr 01 '19 at 12:56
6

Just disable Read Aloud option in Outlook settings: Outlook settings screenshot

gparyani
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vai
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-1

I had the exact same issue.

Couldn't figure out how to resolve it, so finally went back to the e-mail that created the issue in the first place. (I was trying to insert the cent symbol, i.e., "¢" in an e-mail when it first started to happen.)

At any rate, I went into that open message, clicked to the Insert tab and then clicked "Symbol-->More Symbols"(at the bottom once you click on Symbol).

When the dialogue box opened, the font it had defaulted to was"Symbol," so I clicked on that drop down, scrolled to the top to select "Normal," inserted a symbol, and voila! It was fixed.

Don't know if this will work for others, but hopefully it might.

user950853
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