Disappearing Cursor in Word 2003

[Ray Hernandez]

I was wondering if anybody had a solution to this bug in Word 2003.

To discribe the issue in a nutshell:

Same system Windows XP sp3 completly patched and all of the latest drivers
both vedio and mouse, same document used in both the following cases.

Install and patch Office 2003, start Word 2003, open said document using the
cursor keys scroll to the last line, on the last page, the insertion point
cusor disappears.

Same machine as stated before, uninstall Office 2003, Install and patch
Office XP,
start Word 2002, open same document as before using the cursor keys, scroll
to the last line on the last page, the insertion point cursor does not
disappear.

Oh, and by the way this is not as simple as the document is corrupted as I
have done extensive research and testing using many different documents in
word 2002, 2003, 2007 and the bug is definetly in Word 2003.

Is there a hot fix, a registry key setting or something that fixes this bug.
I just refuse to believe that this issue at this point and time has not been
addressed.

 

[Guest]

Is it the same if you open the document and use Ctrl+End to get to the end?

What happens if you SaveAs and choose XML, close the document, open it and
save back to .doc?

Is there anything unusual in the document layout such as long Tables in a
multi-column layout?

 

[Ray Hernandez]

Terry,

It does not happen when doing the Ctrl+End. But it does happen on a regular
document without any tables. My observations indicate the use and repeated
use of the cursor keys. As I stated it only happens in Word 2003, everything
else remaining constant, i.e. Hardware, OS, drivers, documents, etc, only
difference is the Word application version in this case Word 2003.

What I can also share with you is; that this is within a Law Firm
enviroment. The wordprocessors, perhaps, due to time constrains and
deadlines, utilize and are dependent on keyboard cursor keys and short cuts
to get documents out the door as quickly and as efficiently as possible. So
within this enviroment this is a major bug.

 

[Terry Farrell]

If it doesn't happen when you use Ctrl+End but happens in any document when
you repeatedly use the down key strongly suggests a graphics driver/GPU
problem. Word stresses the graphics system far more than most applications
and it usually finds bugs before anything else. Are all the workstations
identical? Are they using the latest graphics driver?

Terry

 

[Ray Hernandez]

Terry,

I know you are trying to help, and Iam not trying to in anyway to diminish,
nor seem ungratefull for your help. But if you read what I have ouline as to
the different test and the parameter of those test, you should come to the
conclusion that I have isolated all variable, and the focus should be
directed to Word 2003 exclusively.
Please read carefully what I have written. And trully Thank You for your
efforts, this is not an easy one, otherwise I would have already fixed it.

 

[Terry Farrell]

I've ruled out Word 2003 as being the problem because it is now 6 years old
and no one has reported this previously. I will not believe it is a Word
2003 bug. If you are convinced, then phone Microsoft and report it as a bug
and they will provide technical support from a Developer (eventually). But
it is not free.

I do understand your frustration - annoyance - with the problem, but I am
nowhere near being convinced it is a bug but rather some external influence.

Terry

 

[Ray Hernandez]

Terry,

If you do searches on the internet you will find, what I have found and that
is, this problem been reported for several years without a resolution.
Because of my extensive testing which I have documented here, I was able to
isolate the issue to Word 2003. It appears that most of the posts concerning
this issue, some individuals find the problem to be sparadic and others were
confused between the mouse pointer and the insertion point cursor in Word,
the only thoughts that Iam able to provide are that my observations indicate
the use of the keyboard cursor keys as oppose to using the mouse and the
enviroment; where in a corparate setting an individual may generate a couple
of documents a day and use the mouse the mojority of time, here in the Legal
field the secretaries are going thru tens of documents per day and rely on
the keyboard to a much greater degree. As an engineer who has been working in
this field for the past 25 years I neither get frustated nor annoyed, I love
solving problems and fixing them and as an engineer I emplore you to keep an
open mind, for it is an open mind that sees what other miss and finds the
solution when others cannot. I was a little diappointed that you would so
easily dismiss all of the data I have gathered thru several weeks of testing
just because Word 2003 has been out for 6 years. As I have conveyed to you
Iam gratefull for your time and efforts.

 

[Tony Jollans]

A difference between Word 2002 and Word 2003 does not, of itself, indicate a
bug in any version of Word at all. It may simply be that Word's interaction
with its environment, differing in some way between versions, highlights a
problem with some other element of your system.

Using cursor keys to scroll from top to bottom of a document is far from an
efficient way to work with Word, more the clumsy behaviour of a beginner.
Regular users of Word who do this would probably benefit from training. I do
recognise that your description may simply be of a way in which you can, on
your system, reliably reproduce the behaviour; if that is so, how often does
the actual disappearance happen in normal use? And is it only with
particular documents?

You don't say what happens after the insertion point cursor disappears. Can
users type as though it were there, in other words, is this purely a visual
effect? Or is interaction with document content affected in some other way?
What does it take to bring the cursor back? What is the impact of the event?

I have, very occasionally, observed the apparently similar behaviour, but
not with any consistency, and it has never caused me a problem, nor driven
me to investigate. I cannot recreate your results on my own system but I am
not running the same software on the same hardware as you, so that doesn't
really prove (or disprove) anything. However, given that this doesn't seem
to affect the majority of users, unless it remains a problem in Word 2007, I
would think the likelihood of anything being done about it, even if it
really is a Word bug, to be virtually nil.

 

[bootes40]

Is it the same if you open the document and use Ctrl+End to get to the end?

What happens if you SaveAs and choose XML, close the document, open it and
save back to .doc?

Is there anything unusual in the document layout such as long Tables in a
multi-column layout?

Yes, someone on the Web advised that you just have to go to 500% view
in the Word document, then back to 100%; it works!
Lily

 

[Pablo Cardellino]

Days ago I wrote this simple macro for doing that. Just create a button
within any toolbar you want for it, and click it when you need:

Sub restoreCursorHeight()
Dim z As Integer
z = ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.Zoom.Percentage
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.Zoom.Percentage = 500
ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.Zoom.Percentage = z
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

Cheers,

--
Pablo Cardellino
Florianópolis, SC
Brazil



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