Mouse-over insert cursor automatically changing due to different heading style

Question

In MS Word 2016 (16.0.8431.2110) 64-bit on Windows 10 (Updates "up to date" 2018/01/23)  

I don't know exactly when this started happening, but I believe it was about 3 or so weeks ago.

My mouse-over cursor is normally the standard "]["-bar, but when I mouse-over anything in italics it essentially disappears into a ghost-like italic and wide-spaced ":" character.

I have included a picture below (the black I-beam is where the cursor is inserted, and the red-circle shows the mouse-over italic broken dots.

I've check the mouse options, and played around with normal, extra-large, etc. but no difference, and the cursor change to a ghosted full colon is only in MS Word.

I have tried disabling hardware graphics acceleration and no difference.

In MS PowerPoint and OneNote, any Bold, Italic, or Underlined all use the same mouse-over icon, it is only messed in up MS Word.

Question 1.)

Why would this become broken without me doing anything?

Question 2.)

Where in MS Word is the ability to modify or change the mouse-over cursor display?

Question 3.)

If I open MS Word in safemode, why can't it work, my assumption is that "Winword /safemode" was supposed to apply all defaults, so something there is overriding even safemode -- that sounds very sub-optimal... so why can't safemode fix it?

Anyways, it's _super_ annoying.

Answer 1

Hello Keith,

Your mouse pointer may sometimes look strange when there were changes made on the settings, or the mouse or display driver is outdated.

While there is no option to modify the mouse pointer appearance within Word, it can be done by going to Start (Windows icon) > Settings (gear icon) > Ease of Access > Mouse. Try changing the Pointer size and Pointer color, and see how it goes. If the issue persists, try updating your device drivers from Device Manager. For instructions, see Update drivers in Windows 10.

Also, opening Word in safe mode only lets you run the app without add-ins or extensions. More information can be found here.

Feel free to reach out if you require further assistance.

Answer 2

There are several threads here in the Community about this problem, none of which has reached any solution or workaround, but you can find them if you google for "cursor over italics in word site:answers.microsoft.com."