Cursor not properly positioned when editing directly inside cell
I found out that if you have longer texts (>20 chars) inside an Excel Cell and you try to edit them the more you get to the right of the text the more the cursor is drawn off to the left of the characters it is actually between. Cursor Position seems to be calculated wrong. I am using Standard Calibri Font. This problem occurs on all Excel Zoom-States except for 200%. Using a non Retina Mac with latest Yosemite.

Hi all – this update is very long overdue, but I wanted to let you know that this issue has been fixed. The update was release in July 2016. You should now see that if you click into a long formula or text value in a cell or formula bar, the cursor shows up where you clicked.
Thanks for supporting Excel and please keep sending your feedback and suggestions. I know it took too long to update this issue, but we are listening. If there are other issues you discussed in the comments here, you may want to move those comments to an open issue that is more relevant to what you’re seeing.
Thanks,
Steve K [MS Excel]
88 comments
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Dean commented
Experienced this issue on Excel 2013 for Windows: I found an Excel-invisible tab preceding the text in cells that had this cursor-not-matching-edit-position issue. To diagnose and fix, I copied the full contents of the cell from the cell contents window up top and pasted into a text editor. Now I could see the erroneous leading space, delete it, and paste back into Excel...all fixed.
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Lynn commented
Had this problem too where the cell that is selected does not correspond with the cell that is highlighted.
I adjusted the zoom from 85% up to 200% and it started working. I scrolled the zoom back to 85% and it’s working at the old zoom level now. Ugh! Thanks for the ZERO help Microsoft!
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Anonymous commented
Still a bug? Steve K what are you doing!
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Frustrated Christo commented
Cursor not at correct position in Excel. I am having this issues on a PC in 2020! I am trying to edit text within a cell and it keeps randomly deleting characters and the cursor looks like it is in the middle of a character. It's a real pain.
But don't worry Microsoft, Google Sheets got you covered. It work to edit sheet there...
(Update) So opening the file in Google sheets it seems there was a 'tab' space between two words next to a space char. When the tab was deleted the editing returned to normal. The original file was imported from text CSV exported file. So somewhere a tab was added and it confused the cursor in Excel. Thats what I found. Hope it helps.
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Cynthia commented
I am having this issues on a PC. I am trying to edit text within a cell and it keeps randomly deleting characters and the cursor looks like it is in the middle of a character. I have tried closing and reopening my document and other things, but it keeps happening. I basically have to edit the copy in word and copy and paste the edits back into excel. It's a real pain.
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Christer commented
I have had this problem since a few years back. I always run the latest versions (now Excel 16.24 and Mac OS 10.14.4). And to all of you giving advice – this is an Excel/Mac problem exlusively!! The same .xlsx file in Numbers or in Excel/Windows works perfectly. And it has nothing to do with the screen or mouse since the Mac acts exactly where the mouse points in all other apps. So please Microsoft - take action!
Sometimes I think that Microsoft deliberately do not fix bugs in Mac versions of Office in order to force everyone to buy a PC. So if this is not fixed soon the best advice is to use Numbers and stay away from Microsoft products! -
Anonymous commented
I'm using v16.16.7 with Mojave and my cursor is off by one row. The cursor is always in the row above where the text displays. It's seemingly random. This happens on both of my macs. Restating the program sometimes works but not always.
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Eric commented
Not fixed at all please provide an answer admin!
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Garbo commented
My cursor misaligns on every few minutes on 7 different i mac machines and laptops that i have. its 16.16.1 and I have OS High Sierra 10.13.6
Is there a fix for this?
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Christopher commented
This solution worked....
I had this issue and the fix (so far so good) seems to change the Display Resolution on the Mac. Search "Display", Under "Display" Tab select one of the scaled resolutions to the right of Default. Either "More Space" or the middle one. -
Jeremy commented
Wow, this is annoying. I am going to probably have to download a Open Office, just to get my job done. Frustrating when the cursor makes it look like you are in one location but up to 3 to for characters are off.
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Anonymous commented
Hi any update on this fix? It is super annoying to use excel for mac.
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Kenaz Gahn Kaze commented
It comes back on v16.10. Supper annoying!!!
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Sami commented
I have the same problem on Excel 15.41 (MacOS High Sierra). Extremely frustrating! And what is worse, it sometimes seems to be fixed by itself, and now it isn't working again. Maybe it has to do with zoom levels, go figure.
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SS commented
This is not fixed for me with Excel 16.9 and Sierra on my Mac!!!!!! So frustrating
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Anonymous commented
This seems to be fixed for me with Excel 16.9
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Lingus commented
Update to last post about 3 minutes ago: The upgrade that caused the issue was Excel 15.38 to Excel 15.41.
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Lingus commented
Sorry Admin. The problem was just created rather than fixed. I just installed an "update". Never had the problem before but I do now. Mac OS 10.13.2. Excel 15.38
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Ron van Dijck commented
This problem was fixed but is back again in release 16.8 of Excel for Mac.
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Anonymous commented
I'm having this same issue with a new mac book pro and excel for mac 15.4. I have to close and reopen files to get cursor to realign with the correct row or column.