selected text highlighting issue

Windows XP SP3. Office 2003 fully updated.

This has always bugged me so I figured I'd finally ask the question. I run 2
monitors and work on multiple things at once. If I have a Word doc open (or
notepad or some other editor) and select a block of text and then move to
another application, the text in the Word doc no longer appears selected.
This is extremely annoying at times. Just because my Word doc is no longer
the active application doesn't mean that I don't want to see what I've
selected. And if it's so that I know it's not the active application, well
that's pretty silly since I can tell that by the title bar at the top of the
window. I know the text is still actually selected and MS just feels taht I
shouldn't have to see it but is there a way to change this behavior?
(Access, outlook, OE, Excel all do the same darn thing).

I'm not sure if this is an XP issue or just a Microsoft issue becuase Open
Office Writer does not display this behavior. If I select some text in an
Open Office document and then go work with some other application that I
have open, the text in the Open Office document is still visibly selected. I
also tested this in Editpad Pro, Adobe Acrobat, Help & Manual and a few
other programs. They all still show the selected text even when going to
another app.

It does seem to be mostly an Office issue but not entirely. SQL EM, QA and
SQLSMS
seem to work fine. But any CHM file regardless of the program that created
it also misbehaves.

Here's an example of why this is very annoying. I use FMS TOtal Access
Detective sometimes to find differences between mdb files I'm working on. It
posts all the differences into Access tables. When I open a table in the
detective I also have the mdb file I'm working on open in another window. I
hightlight the row in the detective (again the Detective shows all this in
an Access mdb file - it's not a proprietay system, it's just Access) and
then go to the mdb I'm working on in order to make changes. When I do that
the row in the Detective mdb file no longer shows the highlighting so I
can't find it quickly at a glance. The same thing is true if you are working
on 2 separate word docs going back and forth making changes. It sure would
be nice if the selected text would show that it's selected even if you are
not on that window. Is this just another MS oversight to annoy people or is
there a way to modify this behavior so that it works correctly?

Keith

Well pretty much determined this is not an OS issue. It's Office. I'm sure
there are a few other programs out there that do this but for the most part
they don't. Maybe MS will fix this in later versions of Office!?!?!?!? Seems
like another very dumb way to handle things.



"Keith G Hicks" wrote in message
...
Windows XP SP3. Office 2003 fully updated.

This has always bugged me so I figured I'd finally ask the question. I run
2
monitors and work on multiple things at once. If I have a Word doc open
(or
notepad or some other editor) and select a block of text and then move to
another application, the text in the Word doc no longer appears selected.
This is extremely annoying at times. Just because my Word doc is no longer
the active application doesn't mean that I don't want to see what I've
selected. And if it's so that I know it's not the active application, well
that's pretty silly since I can tell that by the title bar at the top of
the
window. I know the text is still actually selected and MS just feels taht
I
shouldn't have to see it but is there a way to change this behavior?
(Access, outlook, OE, Excel all do the same darn thing).

I'm not sure if this is an XP issue or just a Microsoft issue becuase Open
Office Writer does not display this behavior. If I select some text in an
Open Office document and then go work with some other application that I
have open, the text in the Open Office document is still visibly selected.
I
also tested this in Editpad Pro, Adobe Acrobat, Help & Manual and a few
other programs. They all still show the selected text even when going to
another app.

It does seem to be mostly an Office issue but not entirely. SQL EM, QA and
SQLSMS
seem to work fine. But any CHM file regardless of the program that created
it also misbehaves.

Here's an example of why this is very annoying. I use FMS TOtal Access
Detective sometimes to find differences between mdb files I'm working on.
It
posts all the differences into Access tables. When I open a table in the
detective I also have the mdb file I'm working on open in another window.
I
hightlight the row in the detective (again the Detective shows all this in
an Access mdb file - it's not a proprietay system, it's just Access) and
then go to the mdb I'm working on in order to make changes. When I do that
the row in the Detective mdb file no longer shows the highlighting so I
can't find it quickly at a glance. The same thing is true if you are
working
on 2 separate word docs going back and forth making changes. It sure would
be nice if the selected text would show that it's selected even if you are
not on that window. Is this just another MS oversight to annoy people or
is there a way to modify this behavior so that it works correctly?

Keith