trouble navigating with up & down arrow keys

In previous versions of Writer (I’m currently using I’m using LibreOffice v4.4.7.2) I could simply go up or down a line by using the up or down arrow keys and the cursor would be immediately above or below the place it had been before pressing the key.

But now when I press the up key, instead of going directly up, the cursor goes up a line but slightly to the left or right, depending on where the cursor was when I began typing on the line before hitting the up arrow. A similar problem likewise for the down arrow.

Not only is this irritating, it severely slows my ability to edit large text documents.

How can I revert back to the previous, simpler arrangement in which up goes directly up and down goes directly down?

I also find this irritating. Up/down arrow should mean vertically upwards/downwards, not from where I last entered (or deleted) text.

Nobody knows what to do? I have upgraded to v5.1.4.2 and am still having this issue.

Did you formerly by any chance work with a fixed width font? In that case you can move up and down in columns, but in text with a proportional font characters won’t align perfectly vertically.

No, while behaviour is different with a fixed font, it still does not make vertical movements.