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florismkleijne's avatar
florismkleijne
Brass Contributor
Aug 01, 2025
Solved

Text cursor misbehaving in Access text field, what causes this and how do I fix it?

Steps to reproduce: create a data-bound form with textboxes showing text field values. Place the cursor in a textbox. Type.

In my Microsoft Access 2016 accdb, I have a form with textboxes showing table field values. When I click on any of these text boxes, the blinking text input cursor appears in the text box more or less as expected, but with an offset that grows as it moves further to the right.

What I mean by offset is that the cursor is shown in a certain place, but entering/deleting text happens a bit further to the left. With the cursor all the way at the beginning of the textbox, editing happens right there. But at the other extreme, if I hit End, the cursor is shown some 5-10% behind the text in the field. Moving a position to the left with the left cursor key, the cursor is still some distance behind the displayed text, but entering text happens before the final character. And when I click somewhere in the middle of the text, the cursor can even display in the middle of a character, and editing always happens a bit to the left of the cursor.

It's as if the text is scaled at 95% for display, relative to the (invisible) text for cursor positioning.

Interestingly, I took a look in my tables, and the behaviour in text fields in the tables is exactly the same.

I've found reports of this elsewhere, but none of the causes and solutions apply here. There are no special characters (tabs or otherwise) in these text fields. There is no code in the Change event. There is no timer running.

I suspect it's a scaling issue somehow, but I can't find any explanations or solutions anywhere. And the issue makes editing the text data near-impossible. I've resorted to copying the text to Notepad, editing there, and pasting it back.

 

  • Hi,

    Access doesn't render the new default font Aptos (Detail) correctly.

    George already mentioned the workaround. You have to choose a(ny) different font, e.g. Aptos Display (Header) which looks similar and doesn't have this problem.

    edit: I forgot to mention the other workaround we found out in an AFo discussion last year: It also helps to simply change the font size from the default 11 point to any other size.

    Servus
    Karl
    ****************
    Access Forever, News, DevCon
    Access-Entwickler-Konferenz AEK

7 Replies

  • George_Hepworth's avatar
    George_Hepworth
    Silver Contributor

    How could I have forgotten the more recent Aptos font problem? 

    Interestingly enough, though, it does remind me that there is truth in the saying, "everything old is new again." I had a similar problem with another font in Access more than 20 years ago.

  • warnerbrase112's avatar
    warnerbrase112
    Copper Contributor

    Funny how Microsoft chose a default font that one of their own apps struggles to render properly. Changing the font finally solved the issue. Coincidentally, I was editing some content for an instagram reels download guide at the time, and needed everything to look just right. Honestly, I was never that fond of Aptos anyway.

  • Hi,

    Access doesn't render the new default font Aptos (Detail) correctly.

    George already mentioned the workaround. You have to choose a(ny) different font, e.g. Aptos Display (Header) which looks similar and doesn't have this problem.

    edit: I forgot to mention the other workaround we found out in an AFo discussion last year: It also helps to simply change the font size from the default 11 point to any other size.

    Servus
    Karl
    ****************
    Access Forever, News, DevCon
    Access-Entwickler-Konferenz AEK

    • florismkleijne's avatar
      florismkleijne
      Brass Contributor

      How strange that MS would choose a default font that one of their apps doesn't render correctly. But that was it, changing the font fixed the issue. I'm not 'font' of Aptos anyway.

  • George_Hepworth's avatar
    George_Hepworth
    Silver Contributor

    Have you tried different fonts, both proportional and non-proportional? 

    Years ago, back around 2004 when I wrote my first book, I remember having a similar problem with one font. I found that switching to a different, more mainstream font, resolved the problem.

    Not saying that's the case here, but it is worth experimenting.

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