No mouse pointer in Writer

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agoldenquill
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Joined: Sat Nov 24, 2007 5:18 pm

No mouse pointer in Writer

Post by agoldenquill »

I am using OOo Writer 2.2.1 in Windows Vista, and for some reason my mouse pointer disappears except in the gray margins. Anytime the mouse pointer is over the text part of the page, it turns into the vertical bar with lines top & bottom, making it difficult if not impossible to see. I can move the mouse around the page but it is very difficult to locate, as it seems to disappear into the text, making it extremely hard to select text, click in the middle of a line, drag and drop, etc.

I have checked all my Vista settings to see if "hide pointer while typing" was selected, but it's not. I then selected it and clicked Apply, Ok, then went back and deselected it, but nothing changed. The only application this seems to happen in is OOo Writer -- the problem does not exist in OOo 2.2.1 Calc (I do not use the other OOo components). The mouse pointer is present in all other applications on my computer, including the Mozilla Firefox browser I'm using right now--the mouse pointer is present on the screen, except when located within this text box. Mouse pointer is present on all other online locations, including Yahoo Compose Mail text box.

No relevant results were returned when I did a search in OOo Writer Help for "mouse pointer"; only result that was close was the following:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dragging and Dropping Within a OpenOffice.org Document
There are many options for moving or copying objects using drag-and-drop. Text sections, drawing objects, graphics, form controls, hyperlinks, cell ranges, and many more can be moved or copied with the mouse.
Note that the mouse pointer displays a plus sign when copying and an arrow when creating a link or hyperlink.
Mouse Pointer
Description

Moving

Copying

Creating a link
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the small chart illustrating the above (not visible here), the mouse pointers shown are typical white arrows.

If there is a setting that can be changed or a bug fix that I have somehow missed, please let me know. It is proving extremely difficult to use the mouse in the Writer application with the pointer disappearing.

Other computer stats:
Acer Aspire 5610-2089
Windows Vista Home Premium
Intel Pentium dual-core processor T2080 1.73GHz
0.99GB RAM
160GB HDD
1GB DDR2
Mobile Intel 945GM Express Chipset Family
Bill
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Re: No mouse pointer in Writer

Post by Bill »

The vertical bar is your mouse pointer. The mouse pointer changes shape depending on where it's located. When in an area where text can be selected, it changes to the vertical bar. You should be able to change the mouse pointers in Mouse Properties. I don't have Vista, but a quick Internet search found these instructions:
http://www.soyouwanna.com/lesson/14_3_c ... ience.html
agoldenquill
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Re: No mouse pointer in Writer

Post by agoldenquill »

Bill wrote:The vertical bar is your mouse pointer. The mouse pointer changes shape depending on where it's located. When in an area where text can be selected, it changes to the vertical bar.
Bill, perhaps you didn't read my post thoroughly enough: I *know* that the vertical bar is the mouse pointer --- it's just nearly impossible to see. And yes, I said that it changes depending on where it's located. This does nothing to solve the problem, which did not exist in previous versions of OOo.
Bill wrote:You should be able to change the mouse pointers in Mouse Properties. I don't have Vista, but a quick Internet search found these instructions:
http://www.soyouwanna.com/lesson/14_3_c ... ience.html
It has nothing to do with Vista settings, and I already tried adjusting all the mouse properties, as I said in my post. (I've been in computers for nearly 20 years, so these are the first things I check.) I went to the webpage you provided the link for, but as I say, I already tried all that. It doesn't happen in other applications that are also running in Vista, only OOo Writer. It doesn't even happen in OOo Calc -- part of the same OpenOffice package (as I also said in my post).

Why would it happen in one OOo application and not in another in the very same package/release?

I do *not* want the mouse pointer to change to a vertical bar when it hovers over an area of text. Isn't there some way to adjust this setting in OOo, or do we have to live with this pointer-blindness?
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acknak
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Re: No mouse pointer in Writer

Post by acknak »

I believe this is standard behavior for applications where text can be selected. I'm on Linux, so it may be a bit different, but it's true for OOo (all OOo apps, when text is selectable), browsers, text editors, even calculators.

As far as I know, this is done in order to make clear to the user which character is on which side of the mouse cursor. If the cursor is the standard arrow, it can be hard to tell exactly where the cursor is, relative to a particular point in the text.

If visibility is the primary problem, then I would look at turning on an accessibility feature that's designed to increase the pointer visibility: mouse trails or cursor flash--something like that. I think that should work no matter what shape the cursor has.
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ccornell
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Re: No mouse pointer in Writer

Post by ccornell »

This is normal mouse behavior for all applications where text can be selected. It's common across all operating systems. Solaris, Linux, Windows, OSX, and not specific to OOo. Open up a browser.... move the mouse cursor over selectable text in a webpage.. the cursor changes to an I.
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agoldenquill
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Re: No mouse pointer in Writer

Post by agoldenquill »

Okay, now that you point it out, it does seem the pointer changes in other apps -- HOWEVER, it doesn't disappear into the background the way it does in OOo Writer. I just tried it in Word (2003), but the pointer is easily locatable at any time, whether it's a vertical bar or not. For some reason the vertical bar in OOo Writer is very narrow, which makes it nearly impossible to see anywhere in the text area --- whether there is text available to select or not (i.e. in a text area that is blank).

I will have to play around with some of the contrast settings to see whether the visibility can be improved. As a longtime user of OOo, I have not had this problem until now, and still don't whenever I'm using Calc. :roll:
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ccornell
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Re: No mouse pointer in Writer

Post by ccornell »

That might be related to your OS mouse cursor theme. I am using a common/default theme on my OS (Linux with KDE) and this is the cursor I see...
cursor.png
That is entirely due to my cursor theme and has nothing to do with OOo though. I don't have Vista... never used it.... does it come with cursor themes? Can you change the cursor theme?
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Bill
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Re: No mouse pointer in Writer

Post by Bill »

agoldenquill wrote:
Bill wrote:The vertical bar is your mouse pointer. The mouse pointer changes shape depending on where it's located. When in an area where text can be selected, it changes to the vertical bar.
Bill, perhaps you didn't read my post thoroughly enough: I *know* that the vertical bar is the mouse pointer --- it's just nearly impossible to see. And yes, I said that it changes depending on where it's located. This does nothing to solve the problem, which did not exist in previous versions of OOo.
Sorry, agoldenquill, I took the thread title literally. As a result, I misinterpreted your other comments to mean that you didn't think that the vertical bar was the mouse pointer.

As to why your pointer is difficult to see in Writer and no other application, I have no answer. Mine is exactly the same in all applications. The pointer is set in the mouse pointer scheme in Mouse Properties and not in each individual application. If you haven't done so already, you might change the mouse pointer scheme to see if a different scheme helps.
CharlesWDavis
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Re: No mouse pointer in Writer

Post by CharlesWDavis »

I am using OOo Writer 2.2 on Windows Vista. I see no problem with the insertion mark.
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Bill
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Re: No mouse pointer in Writer

Post by Bill »

CharlesWDavis wrote:I am using OOo Writer 2.2 on Windows Vista. I see no problem with the insertion mark.
The insertion mark isn't the problem. It's the mouse pointer which in your screenshot is in the dark area on the left side. What does it look like when moved into the text area?
RoseDria
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Re: No mouse pointer in Writer

Post by RoseDria »

Though this question was old, it brought me here today for the same reason as the original poster. So I thought it was a good idea to register just so I could offer a solution that worked for me. In the event anyone else comes across the same problem again in the future, a potential fix could be offered.

I believe the problem arose from a combination of things, at least in my case. The background color of the text box, and the particular shade of the mouse icon when it's in that text box, makes it blend in rendering it hard to see. Reading all the comments in this post led me to the mouse properties on my computer. There you can change the appearance of the cursor. In that window you click on the text select one that looks like an I beam. Once you do that you can access the browse button. After you click the browse button, a long list of options comes up in a window. I scrolled down to the text select mouse icons. Clicking on them shows you what they look like, and I chose the biggest boldest one they had. Once I had that done, I went back the Writer program and my problem was solved. The text selecting cursor now appears very obvious. No matter the background colors. No matter the program I use.

I hope that was clear enough, and helpful. I tried to be concise, and apologize if it ran on. I was trying to keep in mind those who may not be familiar with searching around the computer for mouse properties. Thanks for this awesome program. :)
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hac5x3
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Re: No mouse pointer in Writer

Post by hac5x3 »

RoseDria wrote:Though this question was old, it brought me here today for the same reason as the original poster. So I thought it was a good idea to register just so I could offer a solution that worked for me. In the event anyone else comes across the same problem again in the future, a potential fix could be offered.

I believe the problem arose from a combination of things, at least in my case. The background color of the text box, and the particular shade of the mouse icon when it's in that text box, makes it blend in rendering it hard to see. Reading all the comments in this post led me to the mouse properties on my computer. There you can change the appearance of the cursor. In that window you click on the text select one that looks like an I beam. Once you do that you can access the browse button. After you click the browse button, a long list of options comes up in a window. I scrolled down to the text select mouse icons. Clicking on them shows you what they look like, and I chose the biggest boldest one they had. Once I had that done, I went back the Writer program and my problem was solved. The text selecting cursor now appears very obvious. No matter the background colors. No matter the program I use.

I hope that was clear enough, and helpful. I tried to be concise, and apologize if it ran on. I was trying to keep in mind those who may not be familiar with searching around the computer for mouse properties. Thanks for this awesome program. :)
Thank you so much for this! It was driving me crazy and making my work difficult. Worked like a charm! :bravo:
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