Why does the blinking I-beam cursor keep disappearing when editing text inside tables in Word 2011?

OK, here's an example of the disappearing cursor that I seem to be able to reproduce reliably, even in a separate user account with no customizations:

1. Download the sample file at:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/kntjo809pm6o5jc/Guidelines%202014%20FR.docx?dl=0

2. Open the sample file in Word.
3. Scroll down to page 3, where the body text starts.
4. Double-click on the page header to open the header.
5. Right-click on the "PROVISOIRE" watermark that's part of the header and that is in the background behind the body text.
6. Select "Edit Text…" in the contextual menu.
7. Exit the Edit WordArt Text dialog box with or without editing the text. (Doesn't seem to matter.)
8. Double-click on body text to exit header.
9. Insert the I-beam cursor somewhere inside the body text and start pressing holding down the Left or Right cursor key.

When I do this on my Mac, the blinking I-beam cursor disappears altogether until I release the cursor key.

Can you reproduce this?

Pierre Igot

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BETALOGUE - Weblog at http://www.betalogue.com | Twitter: @betalogue

Yes I can reproduce the problem with the cursor.

The question that I wondered about is, "What is the expected behavior?" I was surprised that you (and I) can select the watermark in Step #5. I tried in two other versions of Word and was not allowed to select the watermark after opening the header.

In all versions of Word I tested in I was able to use Insert > Watermark dialog to edit the text, and there was no problem with the cursor doing it that way.

Maybe the problem is Word 2011 should not have let you select the object in step #5.

Glad to hear you can reproduce!

The reason I used Step #5 is because it was (until now) the only way I knew how to edit an existing watermark.

I just cannot understand why one would have to go through a menu labelled "Insert" in order to edit an existing item. I don't want to insert another watermark!

I realize now that, in Microsoft's twisted world, it's perfectly normal to go through a menu labelled "Insert" in order to edit some existing, already-inserted thing, even though it's completely counterintuitive.

Next thing we know, Microsoft is going to disable access to application-wide preferences when no document window is open. Oh, wait. (In case this is not clear, that's a joke about an unrelated, but similarly absurd behaviour in Word. By definition, application-wide preferences should be accessible whenever the app is up and running, even if no document is open.)

However, the bottom line here should not be about the watermark feature. The bottom line should be that we now have one way to reproduce the disappearing cursor problem reliably. Even if Step #5 doesn't appear to you to be the "normal"/expected way to edit an existing watermark, it exists as a way to edit watermarks, and it works. 

But it also causes the cursor to disappear.

This certainly is far from being the only context in which the cursor keeps disappearing on my machine, but it's a 100% reproducible one, and that's a start.

Maybe by exploring the reasons why the cursor disappears here, Microsoft's engineers can find something more general about why the cursor disappears in a variety of contexts in Word 2011.

But of course this assumes that someone at Microsoft will take an interest in all this. Which is beyond my control.

Here's hoping.

Pierre Igot

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BETALOGUE - Weblog at http://www.betalogue.com | Twitter: @betalogue

In the Office 2016 Preview you will notice that you can not select the watermark, so the problem has been "fixed" LOL

In 2016 Word is now Cocoa based and was re-written from scratch. There's lot of room for coding errors, so if you have Yosemite and want to help make Word a lot better, try it and get those bug reports in ASAP.

The window size bug is fixed!

Thanks but no thanks. I am not particularly interested in doing Microsoft's debugging work for them.

If they paid attention to feature requests and reports about long-standing bugs, that would be another matter. But there's no sign that they do. And there's no improved facility for sending bug reports either, so how on earth are you supposed to submit screen shots and sample documents? I thought the whole point of releasing public previews/betas was to gather feedback!

Glad to hear the window size/position issue is finally addressed. But no Resume (automatic reopening of documents after quitting and relaunching)? That's criminal! Even Word 2011 offers that (albeit with the help of OS X itself, as I don't think the software itself handles any of it).

Another version of Office, another massive disappointment, looks like… No surprises here.

Pierre Igot

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BETALOGUE - Weblog at http://www.betalogue.com | Twitter: @betalogue