Thread: Wandering cursor or keyboard problem

I'm having a weird problem in document programs such as Word and Excel, also entering script here in a TD post. While typing the cursor will suddenly move to a random spot in the document and continue inserting text at that spot.

This is incredibley annoying as I do a lot of work in excel and word and generally type while reading from a report and not looking at the screen. Result being a lot of deletion and re-writting.

Its an Acer laptop.

Any ideas

Mine does this too if the mat is too shiny,ie if somebody has polished it!

This is a laptop right? mine does the same thing, unless keeping hands clear of the tracking pad the curser does tend to jump to a previous line, very annoying. Ah mine is an acer too 5530 and the sound is crap. Solution is to plug in a keyboard if you can.

It sounds like you're accidentally tapping the touch-pad. I used to do that and it was bloody annoying until I retrained my thumbs to stop doing it.

Originally Posted by Begbie

I'm having a weird problem in document programs such as Word and Excel, also entering script here in a TD post. While typing the cursor will suddenly move to a random spot in the document and continue inserting text at that spot.

This is incredibley annoying as I do a lot of work in excel and word and generally type while reading from a report and not looking at the screen. Result being a lot of deletion and re-writting.

Its an Acer laptop.

Any ideas

definately contact with the touch pad at some time. I have to hold my arms in a completely different position when typing on my lap top as opposed to a standard keyboard, otherwise the heel of my hand or thumb will touch the pad..

Thanks folks. Sounds like I'll have to type like a seagull.

Any way to disable the touch pad ?

Originally Posted by Begbie

Any way to disable the touch pad ?

Is there any option in the touch pad settings panel like "Disable touchpad if external mouse detected"? If so just plug a mouse in, otherwise have a look at the top of the keyboard, a lot of laptops have a fn+[key] to disable the touch pad.

I've had the same problem in the past on two separate laptops. One was corrected by fiddling with the sensitivity setting of the touchpad, and the second one only by disabling the touchpad and using a mouse.

Your laptop usually comes with software which loads in the system tray (bottom right hand corner) that controls the touchpad. Sometimes the settings can be accessed there and you should be able to right click on the little icon and disable it if necessary.

CM

Originally Posted by Begbie

Result being a lot of deletion and re-writting.

If this problem is causing to to lose text that you have typed out, and then have to re-enter it, and you are using firefox browser then you should check out "Lazarus" add-on. It saves all typed text in the background automatically, so it can be recovered and used again.

you might have to look in the BIOS to disable the touchpad.

but it is a common problem

maybe do a search and see if some one has written some software for your brand/model , as it is a common annoyance

Originally Posted by baldrick

you might have to look in the BIOS to disable the touchpad.

but it is a common problem

maybe do a search and see if some one has written some software for your brand/model , as it is a common annoyance

Fn F7

Turns off the touchpad. Found it on a laptop forum. Thanks for the suggestion.