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donna140's avatar
donna140
Copper Contributor
Apr 03, 2021

Excel cursor not changing; fill handle not working

I have a new HP Elitebook laptop running Windows 10 pro with Office 365 that I downloaded last week. OS and Office are up to date.

 

I'm working on a huge analysis that I do every month and my cursor is acting really bizarre in Excel. The fill handle isn't working; when I click by the header of a column, the down arrow doesn't appear; I can't adjust column widths; it's very hard to select a whole row by clicking the numbers along the left side (keeps wanting to change row height unless I expand the row and then do it...)

 

Does anyone have any idea what's going on here? I'm super-frustrated!

 

I have checked the Options, Advanced, Editing Options, to ensure 'Enable fill handle and cell drag-and-drop' checkbox is selected. I have also made sure 'Formula - Calculation Options' is set to Automatic.

 

My mouse pointer still will not change to a 'move pointer'. Therefore, I am unable to use the Fill handle to copy a formula down a column.

 

I've checked that the spreadsheet is at 100%, so scaling shouldn't be an issue...

 

please help!!

excel
  • Smartin92's avatar
    Smartin92
    Apr 06, 2021

    donna140 Hi Donna. I was having the same issue, and oddly enough disconnecting my docking station from its power supply and re-plugging it back in fixed it for me. If you are using a docking station I would recommend trying that. 

  • Smartin92's avatar
    Smartin92
    Copper Contributor
    Apr 06, 2021

    donna140 Hi Donna. I was having the same issue, and oddly enough disconnecting my docking station from its power supply and re-plugging it back in fixed it for me. If you are using a docking station I would recommend trying that. 

    • donna140's avatar
      donna140
      Copper Contributor
      Apr 06, 2021

      Smartin92Thanks so much for your response. I actually did that on Sunday (as a total last resort) and it worked! Really appreciate your response. This was an incredibly frustrating experience.

    • Sonia1971's avatar
      Sonia1971
      Copper Contributor
      May 06, 2021
      I just wanted to thank you for this! I have spent far-too-long trying to work out how to fix the exact same problem. So, following you advice, I unplugged everything from everything and then plugged it all back in! Et voilà: the problem is fixed!!!! You have saved me a LOT of time! 🙂
    • LeighSeal's avatar
      LeighSeal
      Copper Contributor
      Jul 20, 2021

      Smartin92 Ok, I thought it was crazy to just detach my keyboard from my surface tablet. I tried a hundred ways to get my curser back. Your simple trick worked. Thank You

      • Roger510's avatar
        Roger510
        Copper Contributor
        Aug 26, 2021

        LeighSeal

        I am so impressed and thankful I had to comment. I too work with large spreadsheets, i dropped my mouse and although not broken was having the same issues that were really starting to impact my work. I had previously tried everything restarting, reloading drivers etc. I kept searching for answers then came across this post fixed! Many thanks     

  • rkoelker's avatar
    rkoelker
    Copper Contributor
    Aug 16, 2023

    Although this did not make logical sense especially when the trackpad exhibited the same behavior, I power cycled the port replicator (aka docking station) and wonder of wonders this trick actually worked.

     

    Thanks for the quick (and easy) solution. 

     

    Also, thanks for not posting a plethora of non-workable solutions.

     

    • pblou49's avatar
      pblou49
      Copper Contributor
      Oct 12, 2023

      rkoelker My first time using this forum, so not sure how to go about. I use excel on my desktop mostly amd the cursor keeps "disappearing". I see that many have "undocked" thier laptops and fixed the problem. However, I have had to close out and reenter my workbooks frequently in order to regenrate the cursor. Obviously, this is not normal and very frustrating. How can I keep the cursor "active"?

      Thank you

       

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