Cursor Problem -?

[Jim Wood]

(I first posted this on the WinXP group, but as I got no replies - and it
seems to be Word-specific - here it is again. Hope someone can help.)

Yesterday I made an appearance change to WinXP, simply to 'show drop shadows'
behind icons and icon text. Well, a few other options mysteriously changed
when I applied this one, but I've been able to fix them easily. My problem
now is that in Word 2003 the "I-Beam" cursor has been replaced with a tiny
blinking line about half-the-height of the text. Under Control
Panel/Mouse/Pointer Options I have the I-Beam selected, but that's not what
shows up on the page. Is there another selection I need to make?

By the way, F1 Help in Word does not address this. Evidently Office 2003
goes right to the Web, and putting 'cursor' in the box brings up a myriad of
totally unrelated tips.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

This may or may not be related to your change in mouse pointers, as many
other users have experienced it (and if it *is* related, that would be good
to know). Most have found that switching to 500% Zoom and back solves the
problem (at least temporarily).

 

[Jim Wood]

That fixed it, Suzanne! At least it appears to have; when I shut down I hope
it stays. This was indeed related to changing my WinXP preference for
backgrounds on desktop icon text. Per another MVP's suggestion, I
right-clicked My Computer, went to
Properties/Advanced/Performance/Settings/Visual Effects, and checked the box:
Use Drop Shadows... Not only did the cursor change, but the visual 'style'
was changed from my preference of Windows Classic to Windows XP. When I
changed this back to Classic (less toy-like looking, I think!), I had to
reset my title bar colors and a couple of other simple things. It was
following this that I noticed the cursor. It's fixed now, I think; many
thanks once again.