XL98: RETURN and Arrow Keys Don't Work When Movie Is Playing

• Microsoft Excel 98 Macintosh Edition

SYMPTOMS

When you work in Microsoft Excel 98 Macintosh Edition, the following problems may occur:

• When you press the RETURN key or any of the arrow keys, Microsoft Excel 98 Macintosh Edition behaves as though you did not press the key, for example:

      - If you are editing a cell and you press RETURN, the cell remains in
        edit mode.
  

      - If you press RETURN while a dialog box is displayed on the screen,
        the dialog box is not dismissed.
  

      - If you attempt to select a cell by using the arrow keys, the
        selection does not change.
  

      -and-
  

• In the Visual Basic Editor, if you click References on the Tools menu and then click the Browse button, you are unable to select any files or even scroll through the list of files in the dialog box.

CAUSE

These problems may occur if the following conditions are true:

• In one window, you insert a movie object into a worksheet, and then use the Loop tool on the Movie toolbar to set the movie to loop.

  -and-

• You start the movie by clicking the Play tool on the Movie toolbar.

  -and-

• While the movie is playing, you switch to a second window and resume working.

For information about a related problem, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

   ARTICLE-ID: Q178762
   TITLE     : XL98: Movie Object Begins Scrolling When You Use Arrow
               Keys

RESOLUTION

To resolve these problem, do either of the following:

• Press the ENTER key on the numeric keypad instead of the RETURN key.

  The ENTER key is not intercepted by the movie object.

  -or-

• Stop the movie from repeating by following these steps:

      1. Select the movie object by clicking it.
  

      2. Point to Toolbars on the View menu, and then click Movie.
  

      3. On the Movie toolbar, click the Loop tool.
  

      Note that when you do this, the movie plays only once when you
      click the Play tool.
  

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article. We are researching this problem and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.

MORE INFORMATION

Example

To demonstrate the problem, follow these steps:

1. In Microsoft Excel 98 Macintosh Edition, create a new workbook.

2. On the Window menu, click New Window. Then, click Arrange on the Window menu, and click OK.

3. In the first window, click Sheet2.

4. On the Insert menu, click Movie. Select any movie, and click Open.

   The movie object appears in the worksheet.

5. On the Movie toolbar, click the Loop tool. Then, click the Play tool.

6. Switch to the second window.

   Note that the movie continues playing in the first window.

7. Select any cell. Type 5, and then press RETURN.

If the movie is looping and you press RETURN, the key is "intercepted" by the movie object in the first window, which starts or stops playing as a result.

If you press either the right arrow key or the left arrow key, the movie pauses and either moves forward one frame (if you press the right arrow key) or backward one frame (if you press the left arrow key). If you press the up arrow key or the down arrow key, nothing happens.