Changing the Insertion Point Cursor

Depending on your preferences in programs, you might find Word's blinking "insertion point" cursor to be bothersome. For instance, you might prefer that the insertion point actually blink at a different rate, or not at all.

There is no way within Word to control the insertion point in this way. However, you can affect its behavior by making some changes directly within Windows. Try following these steps:

1. Choose Settings from the Start menu, and then choose Control Panel. Windows displays the Control Panel.
2. Double-click on the Keyboard applet. Windows displays the Keyboard Properties dialog box. (See Figure 1.)



Figure 1. The Keyboard Properties dialog box.

3. At the bottom of the dialog box is a place to control the Cursor Blink Rate. Adjust the blink rate, as desired.
4. Click on OK.

Depending on your system, you may need to restart Windows in order for the change to take effect.

It should be noted that the above instructions worked just fine with Windows XP, and that they may work fine with other versions of Windows, as well. They will not work OK with all versions of Windows, however, or with all keyboards. Different versions of Windows, for instance, have different steps you follow to display the Control Panel. (Windows Vista comes quickly to mind.) In addition, some non-standard keyboards may have their own setup programs that differ from the one used by my keyboard. In any event, if you are able to display the configuration program for your keyboard, it should have settings that allow you to control the blink rate of the cursor, as described above.