Apple Event: May 7th at 7 am PT
Dear All, please help!
Somehow Escape button started bringing me an autocomplete list in Keynote which is monstrously inconvenient.
I am NOT using tables, I am working with a mere text box. Usually Escape would make me exit the text box, now it offers to insert all the words the Dictionary knows.
It doesn't work this way for Pages, but in the TextEdit it's all the same.
Thank you!
Vasily.
Macbook Pro 15', Mac OS X (10.6.4)
Zloyprep wrote:
Somehow Escape button started bringing me an autocomplete list in Keynote which is monstrously inconvenient.
This is rather surprising.
What you are describing is a feature called "word completion", provided by the Cocoa text engine, and hence used by apps which rely on it, including iWork, TextEdit, and others. When you are typing, or the insertion point is in a suitable position, pressing ⎋, or ⌥⎋, or F5 brings up the word completion list. Of course, it only works if there are suitable words in the list. For instance, if you type "Schad", intending to write "Schadenfreude", you can press ⎋ as much as you wish and nothing will come up. But type "Zeit" and then ⎋, and you'll get "Zeitgeist" sure enough.
What is surprising is that you describe it as if you had just came across it, whereas it has been available for years (although I believe that originally it was activated only by ⌥⎋). iWork (including Keynote) is a little different, because, in addition to ⎋, ⌥⎋, and F5, word completion is also activated by ⌘⎋.
I don't know how to turn off this feature, if indeed it can be turned off.
Usually Escape would make me exit the text box
Is there any chance you mis-remember? The Keynote shortcut for exiting text editing and selecting the text box is ⌘↩ (command-return).
I know that this is a standard feature. However, I never used it and not planning to.
The funny thing is that I was working on a presentation and Escape was working exactly as I said it did (for me it always exited the text editing - all 3.5 years I work on Mac).
Than after my cat ran over the keyboard Escape started giving me the autocomplete list. Restart didn't work, in the Pages Escape does NOT bring me this list, and there is nothing in the shortcuts settings that seems to help here.
So, it looks like it was some keys combination, but I don't have the slightest idea what it was😕
As to command-return, it exits text editing and selects the box. Escape used to exit it without selecting anything, so it looks like a tiny bit different features to me.
Any idea as to reverse the situation is mostly welcome, because changing a shortcut that one uses hundreds of times per presentation is really painful.
Zloyprep wrote:
in the Pages Escape does NOT bring me this list
That is surprising.
there is nothing in the shortcuts settings that seems to help here.
It would not be in Pages, because the feature belongs to the Cocoa text engine.
First, I would suggest posting which version of iWork you are using.
Second, check if you are using any keyboard shortcuts manager, such as iKey or Spark.
I use iWork 09, my Keynote version is 5.1.1.
Never installed any shortcut manager.
Now it is either I'm insane or I don't know what else: word completion works in Pages, as it does in Keynote (It did not before I restarted the computer some short while ago).
Maybe it just should be this way, after all😟
Thank you for trying to help!
Zloyprep, you are definitely not crazy. I experience the same thing, where it used to just exit the text box. I constantly hit the escape key, but get fooled everytime!
I also can't seem to figure out how to turn it off.
Another thing the escape key seems to do differently is exit full screen mode. I used to use escape to basically deselect anything, a figure, text, whatever. Now, it no longer deselects and instead exits full screen.
As far as I can tell, these are both new behaviors. It is second nature for me to use the escape key in the manners mentioned above, so I am pretty sure the actual behavior has changed at some point.
Using Keynote '09.
--Jeff--
I'm having this issue as well in Adobe Illustrator. The escape key, which used to exit menu boxes, now autofills text. This is certainly a new behavior as I have been using this software for many years.
Check this forum which seems to be related to the same issue:
Your problem, hardware or software, may not be exactly the same as that of the original poster of this older thread, and it can be very confusing for everybody if we try to answer more than one question in each thread, which can also result in you applying the wrong advice to your particular problem.
In order for us to give your problem our proper attention to try to solve it, would you kindly start your own thread, describing the trouble you are having in the fullest detail, including completing your details to show what Mac or iDevice you are using, what operating system, and what version of the application in question. Please remember to post in the forum relevant to your hardware or version of OS X. A full list of all the support forums is here:
I think I have found a solution:
run this line in terminal
defaults write -g NSUseSpellCheckerForCompletions -bool false
and restart the app where you were having the problem.
I think that this command either disables the autocompletion or empties the word list. Whatever. The net result is that the ESC key stops entering text, which is as inconsiderate and inconsistent as it gets.
In the same place where I found that command, I found this one also:
defaults write -g NSAllowContinuousSpellChecking -bool false
but I am unsure of what more this does. Until further (and perhaps better) answer from some expert, this two commands have restored my faith in humanity.
Optimal solution would be to detach the ESC key from this behaviour, leaving the F5 and other combinations active, but well.. until then I can happily live without autocompletion.
(sorry, links has already been posted)
How can I turn off the autocomplete (the one summoned by Esc key)?
