Cursor disappears (only) over the italic texts (on PC)

I have had this same problem for months.  On a Lenovo Yoga laptop, 64 bit version of office, World version 1708. 

Extremely frustrating issue, on top if an already frustrating piece of software.

Probably not relevant, but Microsoft does not recommend the use of 64-bit Office unless you have a specific need for, say, very large spreadsheets in Excel. Otherwise, the 32-bit version is recommended, even on 64-bit Windows.

It is annoying that Microsoft's agents keep thinking we are infantile by repeating the same solution to all problem: reinstall & update your programs... it reminds me of that British series, “have you tried turning it off and on again?”

The problem is that (in Word) the ‘text select’ cursor changes when hovering over text in italics. Its size is reduced. On my Surface Pro 4, I can barely observe the changed cursor on my laptop’s screen, but on my second screen, it becomes invisible.

Changing the pointer scheme or even the text select cursor (for instance, into an arrow) doesn’t change this automatic changing (in Word) of the cursor when hovering over text in italics.

This appears to be a bug in office. The problem happens systematically on my computer:

1. I am receive in Outlook an email message with HTML formatting of some sort, with graphics in it, where my cursor shrinks when it moves over a graphic link, or something of that sort, haven't narrowed it down, but the 'trigger' is: my arrow cursor shrinks when moving over a message in Outlook.
2. At that point, I know that my cursor in Word will vanish over italics.
3. The solution is to shut down all the programs and restart the computer. That fixes it, but it's a pain.

My guess is that there is a bug, with Outlook's display algorithm making a call to the Windows API to change the office cursor icons or size, when displaying a certain kind of message, and it doesn't get reset properly, and Word doesn't reset these things either.

My guess also is that this message and the bug report will be ignored by Microsoft. A few years back I tried to document a bug in Microsoft Access, only to find myself in a comic waterfall of people repeating a message about how to fix and ignoring plain documentation of the problem. Just went through a similar experience with the WIRED iPad App.

I don't blame customer service reps, it's a feature of the money making drives of the system, and the way that service reps are evaluated.

Simply restarting MS Word fixed this issue for me.

Thanks!