Word 07 Blinking Cursor (NOT Insertion point)

[Larry B.]

I have Word 2007 on a Vista machine.

I have a problem with Word 2007. For some reason the cursor starting
blinking (not the insertion point which always blinks).

The blinking cursor shows either the I-beam alternating with the CPU busy
icon (a small spinning torus) or the cursor arrow alternating with the CPU
busy icon ... depending upon whether the cursor is within the margins of the
text, outside of the margins or in the menu area. It cycles about once a
second, and it's cycle doesn't match the insertion point blink cycle.

No other application presents this problem.

The blinking cursor is present whether I open an existing document or just
start Word with a new, blank, document.

Microsoft KB941085 lists a couple of reasons for a blinking cursor, none of
which applies to my situation.

I tried renaming normal.dotm ... same results.

It is really annoying and distracting. Does anyone have any suggestions I
might try?

Larry

P.S., rebooting, virus scans, SpyBot S&D scans, Ad-Aware scans, etc., did
not help. Re-ran install setup and attempted repair, uninstalled and
reinstalled ... still no joy in Mudville.

 

[Terry Farrell]

What happens when you start in Safe Mode. From Start, Run, type in

winword /a

and press enter. Has the cursor problem stopped?

 

[Larry B.]

The cursor problem does indeed stop. Works like it should.

Tried winword /a in normal mode, and the problem reappears.

Shoulds like you got a hint of what might be wrong ... I hope, I hope, I hope

 

[Larry B.]

I checked and have no "Active Application Add-ins", no "Document Related
Add-ins", and no "Disabled Application Add-ins", I do have three "Inactive
Application Add-ins". They are: "Custom XML Data", "Headers, Footers, and
Watermarks", and "Hidden Text" all part of OFFRHD.DLL

I also check for .DOT files in the Office\Startup folder ... nothing there,
no .DOT files, no .DOTM files, no files at all ... folder is empty.

I Have McAffee installed and temporarily disabled the functions I thought
might impact Word, (i.e., Virus, Spyware, and Script scanning)

There is no change in the problem.

I really appreciate your help, Terrry. FYI: I am running Vista Ultimate.

 

[Terry Farrell]

All I can say definitely is that there is nothing wrong with Word itself if
it runs fine in Safe Mode (this mode is its virgin install condition
bypassing all templates, macros, customisations and third party add-ins).

Other problems you haven't tried are renaming normal.dotm as normal.bad and
deleting the Word DataKey in case it is corrupt. It may also be a COM add-in
from some third party application.

See the following FAQ for some further diagnostic help and the DataKey.

http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/ProblemsStartingWord.htm


Word DataKey

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\version number\Word\Data

Terry

I checked and have no "Active Application Add-ins", no "Document Related
Add-ins", and no "Disabled Application Add-ins", I do have three
"Inactive
Application Add-ins". They are: "Custom XML Data", "Headers, Footers, and
Watermarks", and "Hidden Text" all part of OFFRHD.DLL

I also check for .DOT files in the Office\Startup folder ... nothing
there,
no .DOT files, no .DOTM files, no files at all ... folder is empty.

I Have McAffee installed and temporarily disabled the functions I thought
might impact Word, (i.e., Virus, Spyware, and Script scanning)

There is no change in the problem.

I really appreciate your help, Terrry. FYI: I am running Vista Ultimate.

 

[Larry B.]

I deleted the Word data key (after exporting it, of course), and started Word
.... still no joy in mudville.

One of the first things I did in attempted to correct the problem was
renaming the Normal.dotm (Word 07 name).

You say starting Word in Safe Mode bypasses all templates, macros,
customisations, and third party add-ins ...are there any Word
startup-switches I could use in normal mode that I could use to bypass those
things one at a time to try to isolate the problem?

Larry

All I can say definitely is that there is nothing wrong with Word itself if
it runs fine in Safe Mode (this mode is its virgin install condition
bypassing all templates, macros, customisations and third party add-ins).

Other problems you haven't tried are renaming normal.dotm as normal.bad and
deleting the Word DataKey in case it is corrupt. It may also be a COM add-in
from some third party application.

See the following FAQ for some further diagnostic help and the DataKey.

http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/ProblemsStartingWord.htm


Word DataKey

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\version number\Word\Data

Terry

 

[Terry Farrell]

No.

But another possible cause of this is a bad network printer. Often, deleting
all printers and installing a local printer set as the Windows Default
resolves this issue.

I deleted the Word data key (after exporting it, of course), and started
Word
... still no joy in mudville.

One of the first things I did in attempted to correct the problem was
renaming the Normal.dotm (Word 07 name).

You say starting Word in Safe Mode bypasses all templates, macros,
customisations, and third party add-ins ...are there any Word
startup-switches I could use in normal mode that I could use to bypass
those
things one at a time to try to isolate the problem?

Larry

 

[Larry B.]

Hi Terry,

I think I found out why I'm getting the blinking cursor ... I see a message
blinking on the bottom of the window (forgot what you call this area, but it
where it shows the what page you're on, the number of pages, and number of
words ) stating "Word is repaginating: documentname.docx page nn"

Where "nn" doesn't seem to change, and is not the first or last page.

This notification message keeps on blinking and is in synch with the
blinking cursor.

It's obvious to me that Word is looping trying to repaginate.

Is there a Word option that I can turn off repagination?

Where can I notifiy MS (without being charged) of this bug?

(BTW, I only have a local printer)

Larry

 

[Larry B.]

Hi Terry,

Thank you very much for your attention to my problem.

As I only had a local default printer and I didn't see the relationship
between the repaginationate loop and the printer, I was sceptical of your
solution.

But I deleted the local printer, rebooted, reinstalled the printer, made it
the default, and WHALA, the problem has been corrected.

Thanks again.

Larry