I use a lot of hidden text in several templates to hide text that I may or may not need. I either delete is it unhide it as I create the document.



Quite often, it is impossible to select several lines of hidden text using the shift key with the arrow keys to extend the selection. After some variable amount of text is selected (as little as a few characters or as much as a few lines), the cursor will jump down several lines in the document. Sometimes it jumps to the end.

Is this a common or known problem?

Is there anything I can do to fix it?

Are you using a laptop? Usually, the "jumping cursor syndrome" is caused by an over-sensitive touchpad. Change its settings in Control Panel or turn it off completely and use a mouse instead.

For text that you want to re-use, consider using Building Block entries.

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

Yes, I am using a laptop with a touchpad. It's a Dell Inspiron 9400 running Win XP with all the updates applied and Office 2007 Pro, also with all updates.

I opened the Mouse applet and changed as many of the sensitivity settings as I could. None of them made any difference. I don't have a mouse to try.

I have a hard time believing that this is caused by the touchpad. It only happens in Word and only with hidden text. I have never had any problems with a cursor jumping around except for the occasional time when I actually touch the touchpad by accident, but then I know it.

Furthermore, it is 100% repeatable. I can place the cursor anywhere in a line of hidden text and it will jump every time.

I just ran a little test. I isolated the problem to certain kinds of hidden text. It has to be in a heading style that has the multi-level heading numbering applied.

I have uploaded two test docs.

The first one, Jumpy cursor without jumps.docx, has two lines of Normal text, one hidden and one not, and two lines of Heading 1 text, again one hidden and one not. None of these lines have any problems with a jumpy cursor.

The second doc, Jumpy cursor with jumps.docx, is a copy of the exact same document, but I selected the Heading 1 lines and applied the multi-line numbering style from the multilevel pull-down in the Paragraph section of the Home tab. Now the second Heading 1 line has the jumpy cursor problem.

I tested these documents on another computer that is not a laptop and uses a mouse. Same behavior.

Attached Files

	Jumpy cursor with jumps.docx (16.5 KB, 11 views)
	Jumpy cursor without jumps.docx (15.1 KB, 9 views)

I can certainly reproduce the behavior in your document, so I guess this must be some sort of document corruption, although it's nothing I have seen before.

Is it OK if I share your file with some fellow MVPs?

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

I know it's handy to blame "document corruption", but it's pretty hard to see it in this situation unless all of my documents are corrupted. I can reproduce that error in a brand new document. In fact, those two documents were created from scratch.

I suppose it could be corruption in the Normal style, but then wouldn't it have to be your Normal style, too?

My money is on one of the thousands of bugs in this very buggy software. Want to wager? Not that we'll ever find out for sure.

I should ask Woody Leonhard. :-)

Sure, show it to anyone.

Obviously, before suggesting document corruption, I tested in a new, blank document on my system, and I was unable to reproduce the issue.

You should try renaming your Normal template, with Word closed. A new template with factory defaults will be recreated the next time you start Word. Then can you reproduce the problem?

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

OK, I have made some additional tests and the issue seems to be with numbered paragraphs (that is, not just numbered headings) that are formatted as hidden. It appears to be a bug.

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

I'm pretty sure that it is not limited to numbered paragraphs, either. I don't have an example right now and I don't have time to try and find one or recreate one right now, but I am 99% confident that I have it happen in body text as well.

Did you test it in the current version of Word? I have 2007.

I have tested in Word 2010 (but not in Word 2013 which I haven't tried yet).

If you think the issue occurs in other situations as well, you will have to figure out which these situations are, so that others can reproduce...

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional