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My cursor keeps turning white in Microsoft Word 2016 (I bought lifetime access), even without typing. I already tried changing the cursor settings so that it wouldn't disappear when typing, but that didn't do anything. After a few seconds the text selection cursor will turn white, and, if I hover over dark text, I can see the cursor outline. This has been happening in multiple documents, so not an isolated incident.
This started after a Microsoft update which forced me to log back into my Microsoft account to use Word about a week or two ago. I've tried everything I can find on the internet, but no luck yet. It's very hard to get work done if I can't see my cursor in Word, so what do I need to do to fix this issue so I can get back to work?
A family of Microsoft word processing software products for creating web, email, and print documents.
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
I have the same experience, my pc running a win 10 and laptop running a win 11, the PC is fine but the laptop failed.
This must be a conflict between OS system and MS-word 2016.
I've had the exact same issue with MS Word (Office 2019) since I installed Win11 two days ago. Tried every solution so far (unchecking "hide cursor while typing", switching to the inverted cursor, turning on and off cursor trail and so on) and nothing seemed to help. However, I was able to fix the issue by simply changing the Office theme to Black or Dark Grey ("disable dark mode" has to be unchecked as well). So the "hide cursor while typing" is still on, cursor trail disabled and I am using the standard mouse cursor theme. Seems to me the issue is not with Windows, but with MS Word. No other apps (including MS Excel, Google Spreadsheets and simply typing into the browser search bar) are affected, only MS Word 2019. Interesting thing though is that I also have a laptop with Office 2019 on it, but it's running Win10. No issue there with MS Word so far. Same as my PC, the laptop has the latest updates for Windows and Office installed, so I think it has to do with Win11 and MS Word specifically. Hope it helps.
Yes, as we've noted here already, this is only a problem with Word using Windows 11. Haven't heard about switching the theme, but that is not a fix, just a patch. If users want their theme to be something else, this will not help, and it's not reasonable to ask users to switch Windows themes every time they want to use Word.
Didn't work for me. I don't even have pointer trails on. I tried turning them on and then off, and still have the white cursor on the Microsoft Word pages. I'm using Office 2019 Professional Plus
First I'm hearing that this is happening in the 2019 version (most people so far have been using 2016, including me). This seems like a larger problem than I thought...
This quick fix worked for me...
Disabled "Display Pointer Trails" via Additional mouse settings - Mouse Properties - Pointer Options - Visibility. Now able to see black vertical cursor on white Word page.
Tried switching pointer trails back on, and white cursor problem reappears!
* Windows 11 Pro Insider Preview, Version 22H2, OS Build 25217.1010, Feature Experience Pack 1000.25217.1010.0
* Word version 2209 (Build 15629.20156 Click-to-Run) - Microsoft 365 Apps for business
Nope. Was never on in the first place. This is a problem Microsoft caused in one of their updates not contingent on computer settings. They are just trying to ignore it, probably in hopes that we'll upgrade to their subscription model.
Didn't work for me. I don't even have pointer trails on. I tried turning them on and then off, and still have the white cursor on the Microsoft Word pages. I'm using Office 2019 Professional Plus