Jumping cursor

users
#1

Hi Folks,

I have a Toshiba Satellite laptop (about 7 years old) running Windows
7. It runs fine and I have no issues with it.

However, when I type in text in a blank document in either Libre
Writer or Word 2003 I’ll complete a sentence or so and then suddenly
the cursor and the last few characters I typed jumps somewhere else in
the plain text document.

I’m not hitting (intentionally) any key to make it do that – it just
jumps around the document at will.

It never does that on the desktop in Libre or Word suggesting it may
be a Toshiba or laptop phenomena.

Has anyone ever encountered this and if so how did you fix it?

Thanks so much!

Charles.

#2

Hi Charles,

Deactivate the touchpad. There should be a function key for activate/deactivate touchpad.

Kind regards
Regina

charles meyer schrieb:

#3

On Wed, 24 Feb 2016 13:18:37 -0500
charles meyer <reachmeplace@gmail.com> dijo:

I have a Toshiba Satellite laptop (about 7 years old) running Windows
7. It runs fine and I have no issues with it.

However, when I type in text in a blank document in either Libre
Writer or Word 2003 I’ll complete a sentence or so and then suddenly
the cursor and the last few characters I typed jumps somewhere else in
the plain text document.

I’m not hitting (intentionally) any key to make it do that – it just
jumps around the document at will.

It never does that on the desktop in Libre or Word suggesting it may
be a Toshiba or laptop phenomena.

Has anyone ever encountered this and if so how did you fix it?

Buy yourself a real mouse for the laptop and then disable the touchpad.

#4

Yes, I've certainly seen this happen. You may not believe this, but when you type you are probably allowing some part of your anatomy - probably your thumb - occasionally to graze across the laptop's trackpad. A touch, of course, instantly moves the cursor to some random position, and your typing continues there instead of where you meant it to be. The irony is that if you try to watch yourself doing it, you will be concentrating on the trackpad and you won't touch it. You will need to get someone else to watch your thumb as you concentrate on the keyboard or screen whilst typing in order to confirm what is happening.

The solution is very simple: you can adjust the properties of the trackpad. The settings will be accessible from the Windows Control Panel - probably as an extra tab in the Mouse section. You will almost certainly find that you can make the trackpad less sensitive. In addition, you may be able to set the trackpad to be automatically totally insensitive whilst you are typing. You mat want to adjust either or both: experiment with the settings until you achieve what you need.

I trust this helps.

Brian Barker

#5

I agree with the others that you're probably brushing the trackpad accidentally. However, simply moving the cursor doesn't change your position in the document; you actually have to click to do that. If you're using the trackpad exclusively, as I do, you should be able to turn off just the tapping feature and rely on the buttons to do your clicking.

I'm not familiar with your particular machine, but I have a Sony Vaio and even putting pressure on the surface *beside* the trackpad can sometimes cause the cursor to move (the surface of the trackpad is the same as that of the rest of the keyboard; it's just indented for the trackpad -- works well most of the time, but I occasionally get the jumping cursor, as well, usually just as I'm clicking on where I *think* it is).

Incidentally, if you find the cursor is sometimes sluggish when you try to move it, it's probably the same root cause -- in my case, a heavy palm pad on the keyboard beside the trackpad.

Dave Liesse