Mouse pointer flickers while typing using MS Word for Mac

Question

This week I purchased a 16in 2019 MacBook Pro. Downloaded The Office suit from my school website. The mouse pointer flickers while I type in Word. It flickers to the keystroke, like morse code. When you first open the program, as in the 1st few minutes of me typing, it won't be flickering. But with enough time, or switching between different colours of lettering, or any number of commands in the program, it will begin flickering. And it won't stop once it has begun. At first I thought it may have been caused by choosing formatting options from the Touch Bar. It does appear that that will cause it to begin... but the flickering will begin whether or not I use the Touch Bar. it is only a matter of time. Anyone know of a fix this? I'd prefer not to return this computer for this single issue.

• It will flicker in Focus more or normal view
• It will flicker within the Word window, or outside it, against the desktop

Sorry to be redundant, but, to be very clear: it it the Mouse Pointer, not the Cursor.

I have tried:

1. Reinstalling Office, multiple times - Including installing Word directly from the App Store to see if that would be different. It was not.
2. Resetting the SMC. This had no effect

The only thing that will cause it to stop flickering is to quit out of Word and then relaunch it. And then the flickering will inevitably come back.

This issue is unique to Word. My mouse pointer will not flicker in Notes or Pages.

I have called Apple 3 times about this. And on each occasion, upon finding that the issue is unique to Word, they told me to contact Microsoft if I want to get it fixed. They claim that there is nothing they can do.

Any experience/ advice would be appreciated.

Secondarily, any opinion/ knowledge related to WHY this is happening (Apple/ Microsoft relationship etc.) may be of use. And, is it more or less likely that this would happen on one of the new M1 MacBooks. Returning this and getting an 16in M1 MacBook may be my fix for this...

Would be a real shame if I ran into the same problem.

Thanks,

-Computerguy5

Answer 1

Hi Computerguy5,

I go through the post carefully, I test on my side in Word for Mac however I cannot repro the same issue. In that cases, the issue could be related to your local environment. I sorry we may not know root causes directly, however, we may find it out by do some testing. Based on the description, it seems that the issue happen in word exclusively and happen after you open Word for some time. As for the issue, here are some suggestions:

1. Please make sure you are using latest version of Office for Mac, if you download Office from Apple store, you may update it from Apple store, if you download Office from installation package, you may update it from Help>Check for updates.
2. To check if the issue related to corrupted office cache, try moving Office cache folder to desktop and check the result. In Finder, press Command+Shift+G, enter ~/Library and then click Go, Open the Containers folder find folder named “com.microsoft.Word”(Called Microsoft Word if you are using Mac OS Big Sur or later), move the file to desktop, then restart Word and check the result.
3. To check if the issue related to any other programs on your Mac, try start Mac under safe mode and check the result: Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support
4. As for Office for Mac On Mac with M1 silicon, The December 2020 release (build 16.44) provides native support for both Apple silicon and Intel-based Macs. As you can see from the link: Microsoft 365, Office 2021, and Office 2019 support for Apple silicon. So Office for mac should work no matter what silicon you are using on Mac. However, if you are using MacBook with M1 silicon, to check if the issue related to M1 silicon, you may try start Office for Mac under Rosetta 2 and check the result.

We appreciate your understanding that sometimes the initial suggestions may not resolve the problem very soon. However, we can work together to narrow down and resolve the situation. So, Please kindly provide more information below to let us work further.

1. What is your office version? You may check it from Word>About word.
2. Does the issue happen on other Office apps?
3. Do your classmates or colleagues get similar issue?

Regards,

Clark

Answer 2

Hi Computerguy5,

Please feel free to post back if there are any updates on the issue.

Regards,

Clark