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Disable Hardware Graphics Acceleration and Fix Blurred Font and Cursor Hanging Problems in Microsoft Office 2013

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We all know that Microsoft has released a free Customer Preview version of its upcoming Office suite “Office 2013” to public.

Office 2013 comes with lots of new features and enhancements. One of the new enhancements is the built-in “Hardware Graphics Acceleration” feature which is also called as “GPU rendering“. This new feature can also be found in almost all modern web browsers. This feature is used to increase the program performance.

But sometimes this feature can cause problems on old computers and even some new computers. Many people who are testing Office 2013 are complaining about blurred text/font problem and random cursor hanging problem.

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Sometimes the font in Office 2013 programs such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc doesn’t look good and users face problems in reading the text on screen. And sometimes Office programs start taking a huge amount of CPU resources which makes the program running very slow and the cursor starts hanging randomly. These kind of problems might make your overall Office experience annoying.

If you are also facing such kind of problems and want to fix them, this tutorial will definitely help you.

This tutorial will tell you how to disable “Hardware Graphics Acceleration” in Microsoft Office 2013 suite which will fix these font and cursor problems and will make your Office 2013 experience better.

So without wasting time, lets start the tutorial:

1. First open any Office 2013 program. For example open Word 2013. It’ll open in new Start Screen mode. Click on “Blank document” option.

2. Now click on “File” menu present in the ribbon and then click on “Options” link given at the end of the left-sidebar.

3. It’ll open Options window. Click on “Advanced” tab and scroll down a little. Look for following 2 options in “Display” section:

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  • Disable hardware graphics acceleration
  • Use subpixel positioning to smooth fonts on screen

First option would be unchecked and second option would be checked by default.

4. First enable “Disable hardware graphics acceleration” option and click on OK button. Restart the program and it should fix the problem.

Fix_Font_Cursor_Problem_Office_2013.png

5. If it doesn’t fix your problem, try to disable “Use subpixel positioning to smooth fonts on screen” option, click on OK button and restart the program.

Now you’ll no longer have font or cursor problems in Office 2013 programs. Changing these options in a single Office program also applies to other remaining Office programs. So you don’t need to follow these steps for all Office programs one by one.

BONUS TIP: You can also disable the new Start Screen in Office 2013 by unchecking “Show the Start screen when this application starts” option in “General” tab of Options window.

Are you also testing Office 2013? How is your experience? Feel free to share your feedback in your comment…

Also Check:

[Tip] Having Problems with Your Web Browser? Disable Hardware Acceleration Feature

Published in: Microsoft Office, Troubleshooting Guides

About the author: Vishal Gupta (also known as VG) has been awarded with Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) award. He holds Masters degree in Computer Applications (MCA). He has written several tech articles for popular newspapers and magazines and has also appeared in tech shows on various TV channels.

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Comments

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  1. Dear Vishal,

    I’ve been following your Blog for quite a some time and i want to say, “You Rock, Vishal”. The Tips & Tricks are easy to follow and are extremely helpful.

    Keep the good work going!

    Regarding Office 2013, it is very fast, smooth, and productive. I don’t think there’s any need to Disable Hardware Acceleration, but it is helpful for people who are having Memory issues.

    David

  2. @David I think you should try turning ON High Contrast color scheme. See if it helps you to see those “messed-up” text. If not, it’s time to give Microsoft some trouble.

  3. Hey David,

    Try running system file checker from an administrator command prompt – it fixed my problems,

    1) click START – ALL PROGRAMS – ACCESSORIES and then right click on COMMAND PROMPT and choose RUN AS ADMINISTRATOR
    2) At the command prompt type the following command and press enter SFC / SCANNOW
    3) When the system scan is complete try to repair office again

    Hope this helps
    Ken

  4. Vishal,

    THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was pulling my hair out on this!!! Disabling Hardware Graphics Acceleration fixed the problem. YES!

    Jack

  5. +1. Thanks so much. Was getting weird, glitchy text display. Parts of the menu bar would appear on the page. Disabled graphics acceleration and all fixed now.

  6. WORKED FOR ME WHEN NONE ELSE DID.

    Every MS Office 2013 app was hanging after half a minute even if I didn’t open any (old or new) file. Sometimes, the inside of MS Application window (I’m using Office2013 32 bit version on Win7 Ultm 64bit SP1) would go black. But now all seems to be ok.

  8. I had exactly the same problem with Word 13 running on Virtualbox.
    Same solution worked. (disable hardware acceleration).

  10. Congrataulations from France………. It works.
    I am quite upset about Microsoft which is completly useless in this situation.
    Thanks again.
    Emmanuel

  11. This post was a lifesaver!

    I figured it was a graphics issue as the unusable blurriness of all of Office programs disappeared whenever my main graphics processor was turned off and the onboard processor graphics was used instead but this is of course a bit cumbersome to do so everytime I want to type a word document. Unfortunately, I have to use CAD software a lot and with large projects, it’s impossible to power them on just onboard graphics (they become unbearable slow). Switching the graphics card on and off between report writing and cad design quickly became tedious as you can imagine!

    Thanks for posting!

  12. Hey, I think this is the problem that I am having with word 2013. But I am running it on a Mac, does anyone know how to find this check box on a Mac??

  13. There is a significant problem with Office 2013 if you want to use Remote desktop to get to your Office. The graphics driver does not appear to be compatible with Remote Desktop. Office 2013 is unusable it is so slow.

    I have tried these settings and they did not help.

    I have just talked to Microsoft the Office support team told me they do not support Remote Desktop. And buying retail, Microsoft basically told me “Tough luck”, we can’t help you – you are stuck with a defective product. What other business in this country gets away with that?

    Have you tried Open Office or Libre Office?

  14. I am running Excel 2013 in Windows 7. The cells do not display color fills even though when I print, the colors are there. Why can’t I see the colors in real time on my monitor?

  15. ^^ Try to update your graphics card drivers. Also make sure the cables are properly connected to the monitor and CPU.

  17. Hi, I just wanted to drop in and say that this absolutely worked on a client’s older model laptop. Thanks for the tip VG! 😀

  18. Hi, Thanks a lot your tip saved grands for me, as I was planning to change my lappy because of slow moving turtle…

  19. Thank you so much! Just got off the phone with a Microsoft consultant who couldn’t help me with this blurring issue and said I needed to sign up for their Office support system at $80 so they can take over my pc and find out what the problem is. You just saved me some money and time and I am so very grateful! You rock!

  21. I´m runnig Word 2013 on Windows 7. I tried both your Options and even another one recommended on web “Disabling Display size changes in high rates of DPI” and nothing is working. My documents in word are ugly, blurry and I do not know what to do. Could you help me? Please.

  22. Just got a new Lenovo S20-30 11.4-inch laptop (upgraded with quad core processor, 2GB memory and 500 gb hard drive)… the size was perfect for me but I was suddenly regretting it because the office programs were SO SLOW!

    I stumble upon your site and it’s a Godsend! Thank you! 🙂

    (Plus I got to install Picture Manager as well thanks to your tips :))

  23. I use an Intel graphics on my laptop and the only way I found to improve the display is to enable custom antialiasing in the graphics settings. Also I made the resizing on the display in control panel. That worked

  24. Nobody knew what was going on with my power point slides, so THANK YOU, it´s fixed, thanks a lot.

  25. I faced the same problem in office word 2016, and Disabling Hardware Graphics Acceleration fixed it.
    Thanks!

  28. Thank you, the font option worked fine for me,
    Also check the show picture place holder in the options.

  29. While in WORD someone is hijacking my docs. The screen goes translucent and then they must be running programs in the backgrouns because the blue wheel spins and I lose the cursor. Then the translucent screen goes away and I am back at my doc. How can I get rid of this creepy hacker?

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