Bug 170260 - Improve visibility of the edit cursor in Writer
Summary: Improve visibility of the edit cursor in Writer
Status: NEEDINFO
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
25.8.4.2 release
Hardware: All All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords: accessibility, needsUXEval
Depends on:
Blocks: a11y, Accessibility Text-Cursor
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2026-01-07 16:50 UTC by Kearney Crochet
Modified: 2026-01-22 11:35 UTC (History)
6 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
Screenshot of settings in Windows 11 (50.84 KB, image/png)
2026-01-10 22:36 UTC, Regina Henschel
Details

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Description Kearney Crochet 2026-01-07 16:50:14 UTC
Description:
This is an accessibility issue.  The text caret within Writer is hard to locate in a page of text.  Writer should have a way to modify the caret to increase its visibility.  For example, modify the color or the thickness of the caret.  We cannot be more specific.

Actual Results:
Simply open Writer and examine the text caret.

Expected Results:
Noted that the text caret is very thin.


Reproducible: Always


User Profile Reset: No

Additional Info:
Need a way to modify the caret to increase its visibility.
Comment 1 V Stuart Foote 2026-01-09 16:48:57 UTC
Believe the operating system and desktop environment provides sufficient control over the edit text cursor in all modules.
Comment 2 Kearney Crochet 2026-01-10 20:27:53 UTC
Stuart, your comment is true for "external" cursors but not for the "internal" cursor within Writer, i.e., the cursor within the text that is controlled by the keyboard, not the mouse.  I believe the correct term is the "caret".  That is the one that is very slim and hard to find if you lose track of it.
Comment 3 Roman Kuznetsov 2026-01-10 20:47:55 UTC
Interesting idea, would be really great if I could see some visual marker around text cursor in the document by pressing some shortcut

UX-team, your opinion here?
Comment 4 Regina Henschel 2026-01-10 22:36:58 UTC
Created attachment 204997 [details]
Screenshot of settings in Windows 11

The screenshot shows the settings possible in Windows 11. I think, that LibreOffice does not need own settings for the text cursor.
Comment 5 V Stuart Foote 2026-01-11 04:22:57 UTC
(In reply to Regina Henschel from comment #4)
> Created attachment 204997 [details]
> Screenshot of settings in Windows 11
> 
> The screenshot shows the settings possible in Windows 11. I think, that
> LibreOffice does not need own settings for the text cursor.

Yes both the colored marker, but especially the "Text cursor thickness" that LibreOffice does respond to. For certain on Windows DWM as Regina notes, but expect similar available to other os/DE.
Comment 6 Heiko Tietze 2026-01-12 05:33:25 UTC
We have some tickets around the caret:

Bug 105415 - System (theme) caret color and size not taken into account
(fixed, gtk 2? uses system themed caret now)
Bug 140353 - UI: Caret merely visible in Writer, LibreOffice (Ubuntu Snap) does not use system settings
(resolved WFM with the hint to modify the system css)
Bug 158875 - Text Cursor (Input Caret) too thin in Writer on macOS
(open, specifically for macOS)
Bug 146397 - Writer: the text cursor is barely visible
(resolved INS, no response to the OS/DE question)
Bug 101379 - UI - (on high resolution screens) text cursor is too thin and so nearly invisible
(open, but c18 offers a solution for W11 - guess the same as comment 4 here)

(In reply to Kearney Crochet from comment #0)
> Need a way to modify the caret to increase its visibility.
Depending on your OS/DE there might be some. Please report if this does not work.

If LibreOffice implements some kind of caret with enhanced accessibility this means to deviate from the OS/DE configuration.
Comment 7 Michael Weghorn 2026-01-22 11:35:12 UTC
(In reply to V Stuart Foote from comment #1)
> Believe the operating system and desktop environment provides sufficient
> control over the edit text cursor in all modules.

Applying the operating system/desktop environment settings sounds like the best approach to me as well.

@Kearney:
Is there any particular issue with that, i.e. something that isn't applied in LibreOffice as expected when set in the system/desktop environment settings?