computer savvy people, why the **** am i getting random capitals

[lph]

Ok, this is driving me nuts. My computer is capitalizing Words for me that I don't want capitalizing, like for instance "Word"... I swear, I am not doing this by sloppy typing.

It does not happen in the middle of a Word. The Word (!) gets capitalized after I've written it, and looks just like an over-zealous spellchecker. But I cannot fathom:

1. why these Words get chosen. Here are some of them, and I am now typing only lowercase out this sentence - Call Capitals People Family Guess Project Our. As far as I can see there is no reason they should get picked.

2. where to fix it.

I'm using Internet Explorer (I know, it stinks, but then we all get to have each Our browser in the Family). I haven't found an option to set a spellchecker anywhere. I did try turning off all autocorrecting options in Word a few minutes ago, on the off chance that IE was using Word to format text, but it didn't help. It's not just TE, but I notice it most here because it only happens when I type in English.

Please, pretty pleeeease.... does anyone know how to fix it? Or I will be typing in ALL CAPITALS soon!

[ny biker]

I have no idea, but have you tried typing something like "random capital letters IE" into your favorite search engine? Sometimes that will lead you to a help page on the Microsoft site or an article about the problem.

[lph]

yup, I tried, but it seems the most common problem out there is completely random caps due to a faulty keyboard, and that's not it.

[Irulan]

Did you try a different keyboard?

[lph]

We have three different browsers on that computer, and it only happens in Internet Explorer. So I can fix it by using another browser. But it bugs me to not know what it is...

I do have an extremely computer savvy dh who is willing to sit down and work it out, so you needn't trouble yourselves too much :-) But in case anyone happens to know off the bat what it is and how to fix it, I'd love to know. Looks just like an autocorrect thingy.

In fact it's rather like that e-mail that went around some years ago about how to drive people crazy, switch their coffee for tea, pretend to not recognize them, that sort of thing... silly but infuriating.

[Sylvia]

I don't know if this will help, but in Internet Explorer, there is an Internet Options dialog where you can make configurations changes to auto complete and Internet Explorer add-ons (like spell check). To get there Press the Alt-X keys and a pop-up menu should show. Select internet options and a dialog box will appear. On the Content tab you can change the auto complete options. Just click the Settings button for Auto Complete. Also click on the Programs tab and click Manage add-ons. There maybe an add-on you want to disable or remove.

[lph]

our family capital

Sylvia, thank you!!!

As you can see ;-) it worked. I had checked out the autocomplete options, but not the add-ons. Lo and behold, there's an add-on called Spellchecker, which is now resoundingly turned off.

I still have no idea why the spellchecker felt the need to capitalize words like call and people, but at least I can type without my brain boiling over.

I love TE :-)

[smilingcat]

I never knew. Learn something every day not that I would ever use IE, Chrome... Google is getting much too big and too monolithic. I prefer diversity.

[malkin]

I'm glad you got it fixed. For a while my phone got stuck typing in ALL CAPS and I was afraid to send text for fear everyone would think I was shouting at them.

[Sylvia]

our family capital

Sylvia, thank you!!!

As you can see ;-) it worked. I had checked out the autocomplete options, but not the add-ons. Lo and behold, there's an add-on called Spellchecker, which is now resoundingly turned off.

I still have no idea why the spellchecker felt the need to capitalize words like call and people, but at least I can type without my brain boiling over.

I love TE :-)


You're welcome. I'm glad I could help. :)

[lph]

Hey malkin, I once had a cellphone that I spilled juice on and the keys started dying on me. First the middle one, nr 5. So I had to write without using words containing j, k or l. Then nr 7 died, so no p, q, r or s. I started getting creative, substituing nr 3 for s, and nr 1 for l. By the time the third key died no-one could understand my texts anymore, so I had to get a new phone...

[ny biker]

In fact it's rather like that e-mail that went around some years ago about how to drive people crazy, switch their coffee for tea, pretend to not recognize them, that sort of thing... silly but infuriating.

If they made a modern version of the movie "Gaslight," the Charles Boyer character would be an IT person who drives the Ingrid Bergman character mad by messing with things like autocorrect, auto-formatting in Microsoft Office and updates to Smartphone apps.