Using MS Word for Mac - Can't see cursor

All fixes are nothing but temporary.

Auot-ruler, spell check etc. Nothing works on a permanent basis.

I have the disappearing cursor on 90% of the documents I work on. I can make it go away on purpose just by hitting Ctrl+S (saving the document). If I don't save the cursor stays visible. But only a foll would not save often when working with Ms Word...

The only temporary/easy fix I found is the following:

You can bring back the cursor by changing focus to another Word window, then back to the original file: bam, the cursor is there again.

Microsoft people should be ashamed that this issue has been there for so many years. They even claimed it was fixed with the 14.4 update, which, as noted already in this forum, is not true. I have the latest updates 14,6 and the cursor still disappears regularly.

This issue has gone worse with Yosemite, and even more frequent since I upgraded to Capitan, so I surmise that Apple is not helping either... Actually with Mountain Lion it was only half as bad.

I do not find a "Hide cursor while typing" setting in any of Mac's System preferences/Keyboard|Mouse|Trackpad or Word's Preferences/General|View|Edit settings. It looks like Windows has a "Hide cursor while typing" feature, but that is about the mouse cursor..

I hate this cursor-hiding feature in Mac Word. It is especially annoying when trying to use the arrow keys for navigation. The cursor disappears until you wait a bit, but this makes the auto-repeat feature absolutely useless for moving around.

I found this:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2010-word/disappearing-** rsor/6cc6e36a-93df-4d8b-be5b-3aebf6219f35

... which suggested it might be some document-dependent bug. I opened a new, fresh document and noticed that the cursor was more usable. It still disappeared while typing, but did not disappear with ue of the arrow-keys.

I do not like the suggested workaround of re-formatting the document.

Mine disappeared when I changed one of the preset styles that was used in the document without updated the current sections. Once I updated the document sections that used that style (which there is an option to have it automatically update the rest of the document sections that use that style when you have one of them selected), it came back.

If you really MS wrote Word with no insertion point display I'd rather not thanks.

I don't understand that sentence. Sorry. I think Word has a bug, and MS knows, and claims it's fixed, but it's not. It's annoying. Not sure why you're defending them from me. But, I guess everyone needs a purpose.

Thank you! It worked.

You're right. And I wouldn't release software that was fundamentally broken.

There may be a setting in Word or even in the OS, under Keyboard in Sys Prefs, to Hide the Cursor when typing. If that is set it takes a Short time from when you stop typing for the cursor to show up. Not sure if there is a setting for the delay.

I found this helpful from the Microsoft community. It was supposed to be fixed in 14.4.1 update, but apparently not, since I have 14.5.3. Best of luck.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/mac/forum/macoffice2011-macword/disappearing- cursor-in-word-for-mac-2011/549c7315-ba9f-4e2d-aef3-154f90a2e7b8?auth=1

I found a temporary fix. I opened a new blank doc, which, mysteriously, has a functioning cursor. Then I go back to my original document, and, mysteriously, have funcitoning cursor for a little while until it, again mysteriously, decides to go away.

<Edited by Host>

I was agreeing with the other poster. Basically it's dumb that they released a word processor that doesn't have a cursor. unless you monkey with it, and then it disappears again after a minute. I came looking for a solution, just to find that there is none. If you're complaining about my response, it was at least addressing the original complaint, whereas yours is completely off topic.

Try going to WORD

Preferences

General

uncheck AUTO-HIDE RULER

The disappearing Cursor seems to be related to the spell checker. Whenever the spell checker is busy the cursor is not visible. Deselect spell checking while typing and the cursor is back.

Thank you! That totally worked. Sigh of relief!

Brilliant! Thanks for posting.