Arrow keys on external keyboard don't work with Office products, e.g. Word

Question

Level 1

5 points

Arrow keys on external keyboard don't work with Office products, e.g. Word

I often use an external Bluetooth keyboard with my iPad, but when I use it with OneNote and Word the arrow keys don’t behave properly. They work fine for Apple applications but not the Microsoft ones.

The external keyboard is practically useless without the arrow keys. The only way I’ve found to get them to work is by turning off “Full Keyboard Access” in Accessibility/Keyboards.

Does anyone have any better solutions? I’m running iPadOS 15.6.1 on my Mini 5 so everything’s up-to-date. I see lots of other people have had this same issue. Can’t these two play better together?

iPad mini 5, iPadOS 15

Posted on Jan 3, 2023 07:55 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

121,566 points

Jan 3, 2023 08:30 PM in response to Marvy2718

Marvy2718 wrote:

The only way I’ve found to get them to work is by turning off “Full Keyboard Access” in Accessibility/Keyboards.

You have found the basic fix. To make it unnecessary, MS will have to fix its products I think.

Do you reallly need Full Keyboard Access to be ON for some reason? If so, you can try customizing the "Commands" in the settings for Full Keyboard Access.

Adjust the onscreen and external keyboard settings on iPad - Apple Support

Reply

Answer 2

Marvy2718 Author

Level 1

5 points

Jan 4, 2023 05:18 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Thanks, I finally discovered this fix through much searching so I haven't had a chance to see if it affects anything else, but so far so good. Thanks for the tip about Commands, and I agree with you that it only seems to be Microsoft products that have this issue on my iPad. All other apps work fine with the "Full Keyboard" turned on.

Reply

Answer 3

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

121,566 points

Jan 4, 2023 06:52 AM in response to Marvy2718

Marvy2718 wrote:

I haven't had a chance to see if it affects anything else

The most common problem it causes is the space bar not working in certain apps and web pages.

Reply

Arrow keys on external keyboard don't work with Office products, e.g. Word

Similar questions