Make typing cursor more visible in Writer

English
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#1

Hello,

My specs :
Lenovo Ideapad 110,
Firefox = 69 (64-bit),
LibreOffice = 6.0.7.3 - Build ID: 1: 6.0.7,
Linux Mint 19

I have been using LibreOffice for a number of years, and have always been very happy with everything, except the size of the typing cursor in Writer, and now as my eyesight is not quite as sharp as it used to be I am increasingly finding that I am misplacing the cursor in among a block of text and the quickest way to locate it is to hit enter and find where the paragraph “broke”, pick up the cursor and repair the paragraph. (Bit of a PITA)
Is there a command, or a software switch which can be changed to thicken the vertical bar, much like I believe MS Word can, (not sure if this is correct, I haven’t used Word for years)?

Regards

Al

1 Like
#2

If I’m not wrong it’s something that you must do on the mouse configuration in the OS.

#3

Hi,

Thank you for your suggestion. The only section within the O/S which has anything pertaining to cursor size is the section which enables me to alter the size, and appearance, of the mouse cursor, (the pointy thing you move around your screen), however I am alluding to the vertical bar in Writer which shows where the next letter will appear when I type.

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply.

#4

I don’t know in Linux, but in Windows 10 it’s an OS option for the mouse, ‘Change the thickness of the cursor’.

#5

No Linux Mint, (the distribution I prefer to use), does not appear to have that functionality. I had assumed, (incorrectly it appears), that LibreOffice would contain some software switch or command to do this, as not all LibreOffice users use Windows, so therefore do not have access to all the “tweaks” pertaining to that O/S.

Is there not a key press or selection I can make which achieve this for me?

It’s the same in the other modules of LibreOffice, it’s just I use Writer the most frequently, and I find that within Writer it is easiest to “lose” my cursor.

Thank you for your help

#6

Hello everyone,
I am surprised by the apparent lack of response to what I thought would be a simple and straightforward question.

I am still bothered by the difficulty to see the “typing cursor”, (apparently that is its correct name), and following one suggestion I found on a French blog I tried changing the background colour, (the typing area) to black, and the type face, (the letters) to white. That did not help, it did not make it easier to locate the typing cursor.

Another suggestion I have had, which I haven’t tried yet, is to continue to use LibreOffice for everything else, but install another word processor such as Abiword, (apparently the typing cursor in Abiword is a little bit thicker).

Has anyone had any experience with Abiword, or any other word processors, apart from MS Office?

#7

Further to my comment above,
I have installed Abiword and have a small play with it, yes the typing cursor is approximately twice the width of the typing cursor in LibreOffice. However, being a lightweight word processor it lacks a lot of what I would determine to be the important features of LibreOffice. Otherwise it might have been a contender.

Looks as though I am stuck with a almost invisible typing cursor, until such a time as the developers of this fine product deem the typing cursor as being worthy of their attention, (probably when their eyesight starts to get a little less sharp than it currently is).

Al

#8

Better create a bug report or a enhancement request Feedback

#9

I’m afraid I have no idea how to go about that, I thought the various support teams read these problem reports to determine areas which might require attention.

Happy to request an enhancement if someone would be good enough to give a step by step on the process

#10

@OldBiker, as you are using Mint, i.e., a gtk3 based desktop, the accepted answer in this question will help you to make the cursor thicker: LO writer on Linux: change appearance of typing cursor (i.e. not mouse cursor)

1 Like
#11

I had the same problem with the typing cursor. I got very frustrated as I increased the usage of Writer recently. I am using Ubuntu and LO 7.1.4.2. I googled around and I thickened the gtk3 Themes, it helped other applications but still the Writer’s cursor is just a narrow line. Then I stumbled upon something. It’s a workaround but it helps. Locate the key on your keyboard, press it, and it’ll bring you to the Overwrite Mode, the typing cursor now blinks with the width of your character. Remember to take it out the Overwrite Mode by pressing the key again unless you want to overwrite the rest of the line. The problem is that if you are at the end of a line, you’ll still see the blinking narrow cursor cause there is nothing to overwrite with. I could live with it because now at least the cursor is not buried inside of a jungle of characters and I can easily spot it. Remember to take it out of the Overwrite Mode though.

#12

It’s now march 2023 and still the same problem here: bad eyesighted and unable to make the textcursor in Writer more visible! I am using macOS Monterey. There are as far as i can see only adjustments in speed of the mouse, but not any adjustments in size of the cursor. I am not familiar with bugreports and/or requests to yhe LibreOffice developers.

#13

I’m not a user of very many applications, but among those I know, there are none offering a related native setting.
I would assume, features of the kind, and support concerning any kind of handicap are generally left to the OperatingSystem.
Under Windows (V 10 in my case) I can change the width of the blinking cursor. I just replaced a value of “2” found there with “4”, and Writer immediately started to show the insertion cursor with double width. So did Calc.
I would suppose other OS allow for similar settings.

#14

Me too; however, macos - Change the width and color of Mac OS X text caret (cursor) - Super User (the answer from more than 10 years ago) seems to suggest that almighty Apple architects believe that changing defaults centrally is a waste of their energy.

#15

This is probably Windows specific. I went in “System Settings” on my KDE Plasma machine (Fedora 37 = Linux). In the cursor theme control, there is a menu to choose the mouse cursor size. I change from 24pt to 36 pt with an immediate effect on the mouse. However, it didn’t change the text blinking cursor in Writer (even after close and reload).


I guess such a control is probably hidden in the widget library configuration. I know where to find GTK conf, but have no idea about Qt. But the caret may also be controlled by LO. In which case …

#16

I definitely remember the control working on Linux under GTK, so any failure to follow system settings here is a bug.

#17

I am old too. These are my work-around or tricks. If the textcursor is not at the line end, I press the key and the character at the textcursor will blink, it’s probably big enough for you to see. Remember to press the key again to take you out of the insert mode. The downside is that if the textcusor is at the end of the line, you will still see(or not see🙂) the cursor at the line end. I don’t think this trick is much better than your fixing the broken paragraph.
For the mouse cursor, you may click the mouse button with your middle finger to get the pulldown menu and it’ll put the textcursor at that same place, using the escape key to get out of the pulldown menu.
Either way these are Mickey Mouse tricks.
The best way is still to file an enhancement request for Libreoffice through their website but that could take a while before anything to happen. My two cents.:slightly_smiling_face:

#18

It takes a lot longer if nobody files an enhancement request. Just saying :slightly_smiling_face:

1 Like
#19

The solution by @MarkieMark and pointed to above by @Vanadium works very nicely with Ubuntu 22.04.2 and LibreOffice 7.3.7.2. Thanks to all involved. But, Yes, a solution within LibreOffice would be very helpful.

#20

Folks, to be a good boy, I went on to the Libreoffice bug reports and found two incidents about the text cursor, bug id 140353 and 146397. They are both with Linux.
I am still using Ubuntu 14.04 but used snap to install LO 7.5. With the help of adding this line in ~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css:

  • { -GtkWidget-cursor-aspect-ratio: 0.3; }
    It increased the cursor width to be much more visible. You could try 0.4 or 0.5 but with too big a cursor it might overlap too much with the character.
    I have LO 6.0.6.2 installed with native .deb but it didn’t work with the gtk.css file.

I am not familiar with macOS Monterey. Maybe there is a place to change the cursor width? Another suggestion is to upgrade your LO to the latest version to see whether it helps.
Cisca1953, you might need to file a bug report with LO since I don’t have macOS. It’s not that hard. Good luck!

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