Injohneer

Anyone know why the cursor disappears in Word 2003? If I am typing along and then decide that I want to change a letter a few spaces away, I usually hit the arrow keys.. but I'm losing the cursor. It just disappears.

I've looked everywhere I can to find a setting to hide or not hide the cursor...can't find it.

Usually I'm pretty well informed about micro$oft office junk...but my new computer at work has Office 2003 and I haven't had to use it much yet.

Corey

iTrader: (1)

More than likely it is not Office, but Windows.

The option is in your Control Panel , then the Mouse area.
http://www.pnw4runners.com/temp2/mouse_pointer.jpg

There is a check box in there to hide the curser while you are typing.

Injohneer

Thanks for moving the post - I goofed in putting it in the wrong spot.

But no, I don't THINK it's Windows.... I'm running Win 2k Pro, which doesn't offer the "hide while typing" feature - At least, not from the mouse control dialog box.

tulsa_97SR5

Does the cursor come back as soon as you move the mouse? My intellipoint mouse software has a 'hide while you type' option that isn't selected, but it still Word 97 still hides the cursor. Can't find an option within word for it though....

Injohneer

Hey Brian, it's been a while.

Yes, you have the same problem I have. I have a Gateway mouse.

The POINTER hides when I type (Word only, not in Excel or Notepad or DevStudio or anything else) which is fine, but it's the CURSOR (the little black flashing | that shows your location) that hides when I use the arrow keys.

Incidentally, it's not hiding the cursor today, just the pointer. I didn't even restart, or anything. I know that it does it most of the time, but I guess it's not all the time.... Problem gone away for right now (not solved, tho...)

midiwall

Looking through a magical database here at work (a "small software company in Redmond, WA"), I found a couple of references to other folks reporting this problem.

Many of the incidents ended by pointing people to this KB article:
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;256979

("argh!")

The threads are a bit involved, and some of them are frustrating to read, but... there's a little hope. I found one case that ended like this:The steps on how to do this are given as:Then, search for the document templates (*.dot) and either rename them to something that Word won't find (*.dot.x) or just whack 'em and re-install them off of the CDs.


Give that a shot and see what happens.

Injohneer

EndNote?
I don't have anything in the Global Templates and Addins pane...


By the way, I see you have XM radio... I was one of the nerdy engineer interns who worked on those satellites!

midiwall

Hmmm, damn tech database.

I wonder what the Office Geek (the guy coming up with these things to try that are logged in the database) was really getting at? There are plenty of mentions btw that this only happens on Win2k, many people reported that it wasn't an issue after they moved to XP.

There are a couple of cases mentioning that re-installing Word (just Word) fixed the problem. But they're talkling about a full re-install; remove it, reboot, then install it. Don't just "repair" it.

Another repeated suggestion was to remove the mouse driver (_really_ remove it, via the Device Manager), then reboot and let Windows use the default simple driver. None of those cases logged though as "closed"...

One complaint was filed as the customer noticing that Word was faster (cursor response and typing in general) in Safe Mode and/or launching with the "/a" param. This was used as a diagnostic point, but didn't really come up with a cure in the end.


From the commonality of the suggestions and such, it looks like the Office Geeks think one of two things is up:

• The mouse driver is conflicting with the video driver
• There's corruption in the standard templates that's causing Word to get REALLY bogged down, thus creating a situation that the cursor takes a LONG time to come back after it "hides normally".

Did you happen to try deleting normal.dot and friends? I'd be curious to see what happens.



K3WL!

Thank you then!

And to share back, I'm one of the geeks in the responsibility chain for the codecs that XM Online is using, and my bestus buddy owns the WMP 10 "online store" button where XM Online lives.

tulsa_97SR5

Ahhh, now I get it, not sure what to do, but midi seems to have the inside scoop. One hint that might help is the hold the shift key while you're using the arrows & the cursor is doing it's invisible trick. At least that should give you an idea if you've moved far enough.

We need to get another tulsa run setup. I've finally got new tires & need to test them out.

Injohneer

Nope, I left it alone because it wasn't acting up yesterday. If I can get it to malfunction today, I'll try:
#1 - rename normal.dot and friends
#2 - use different mouse driver


The three Boeing 702s (Rock, Roll, and the backup satellite) are flown by a Canadian company called Telesat (at least, that's who they went to after Boeing was done).
I was one of the paperwork checkers during the handover from Boeing to Telesat...
Man, those Canadians hated Boeing's ground control software... LOL


Put up a post in that section, then! I can't go until some time into November...

midiwall

! And I do trust that you kept the english math from the metric math, right?


Lemme know if whacking the templates helps any... I can keep searching this DB, but I may have tapped it out.

Injohneer

heh, yeah... No promise on what Telesat did though. They were buying the flight software package because that's the way Boeing sells it - but planned to scrap it and run their own!

At least people are getting their music.

For the time being, the problem has healed itself. But I'll update you if anything further happens.

mb1280

I'm using Word 97.
The blinking vertical bar is called the "cursor" or "insertion point."
The problem occurs because of the "View" that you're in (probably Page Layout).
The left and right arrows work in any view, but when holding down the spacebar or backspace keys, the cursor disappears as follows:

Normal - Ok
Online Layout - disappears
Page Layout - disappears
Outline - Ok
Master Document - Ok

(I slightly modified this . . . )

So the question becomes, "How can I make Word open new documents in a certain view (Normal) or at a specified zoom ratio (Page Width)?

* * * * *

Article contributed by Suzanne Barnhill
http://word.mvps.org/FAQS/General/SaveViewAndZoom.htm

To change these settings you must modify the attached template itself. If you have not specifically attached a template, the template will be Normal.dot (the 'global' template that is the basis for a new Blank Document and that stores many of the default settings in Word), and it is essential that you actually open the template and modify it the same way you would a document.

1. The first thing you have to do is find Normal.dot. The exact location should be specified on the File Locations tab of Tools \ Options (the path given for 'User Templates'), but you can also use Windows Find to locate the file.

2. Once you have found Normal.dot, navigate to it using the File \ Open dialog in Word; click on the file and open it. Alternatively, you can right-click on it in Windows Explorer and select Open.

What you can't do is double-click on the file in Windows Explorer, because that creates a new document based on the template, instead of opening the template. Similarly, if you right-click on the template icon in the File \ New dialog and choose Open, you are actually opening a copy of the template that can be saved only as a new template. Neither of these techniques will do what you want.

3. When you have the template open for editing, change the view and/or zoom to the desired one.

4. In Word 97 and above, you then need to press Space followed by Backspace, or make some similar change, in order to make Word recognize that the file has been changed (Word 97 and later versions will not allow you to save a file they don't regard as having changed. If Word doesn't register that a file has changed, the Undo button will be greyed out. If the button is enabled, you can save.).

5. Finally, save (Using Ctrl+S, File \ Save, or the Save button on the toolbar ? not File \ Save As. If you can't save without giving the file a name, then you have done something wrong in opening the file and are not really working on Normal.dot but instead on a document or template based on it.).

The next time you create a new document based on this template, you should see it in the desired view and zoom ratio. Note that these changes will not affect documents you have already created. In order to change them, you will have to open them individually and repeat the above process (including the vital 'change' to trick Word into saving the document). You will also need to repeat the process with all other templates you use.

Curtschu

Ok I have a couple of users that have this same problem. You can type along happy with the insertion point showing but as soon as you hit enter it disapears. If you keep type and alow the sertance to wrap the IP comes back. BTW I have the problem so I can test on my machine.
Heres what I have done so far.....

1 Complete clean uninstall reinstall of Office.
2 Rename and replace Normal.dot
3 Check all the cursor setting.
4 used Basic Mouse Drivers


Any other ideas?

depotgrl

I'm using MS Word 2008 (12.2.3) on my Mac Mini with OS 10.5.8, and I'll be typing away and the cursor disappears and I can no longer use the arrow keys. Once or twice quitting and restarting Word seemed to help, but I just tried that and — nothing. I keep having to use my mouse to reposition my cursor so I can type back in already-written text. This is a huge pain in the ass, since I write for a living and am in Word constantly.

Another annoying thing, since I got this new Mac Mini with Word 12.2.3, is that when I do command-O to open a Word file, and the dialog box opens to the last folder I opened a file in, I can't just click on Documents in the left-hand menu to get back to the Documents folder. I have to click on Applications or Pictures or Music, or anything really, first, before it will go back to Documents.

So glad they keep updating Word with all these great new features.

I checked the System Preferences, and there's no "hide cursor" option, so that's not it. I tried disabling Templates and Addins, but my Global Templates and Addins pane, like Injohneer's, was empty. I can't uninstall Endnote, even if I could figure out how, because it's a kind of necessary feature when you're writing a book....

Anyone have any ideas? Thanks!