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The single-pixel-width cursor / caret in Gedit (and other text editor boxes in Ubuntu) is pretty thin and hard to see:

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I like the block cursor used in the standard terminal, however:

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Is there a way to adjust the Gedit typing cursor to be a thicker line, or a block, or a horizontal underbar, or something easier to see? I would like to do this while still maintaining the standard "insert text here" behavior of the bar; I do not want to overwrite text.

(I believe both "cursor" and "caret" are sometimes used to refer to the text insertion point.)

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  • you can switch off your Numeric keypad (the numbers on the right-hand side of your keyboard) and press zero for switching between the two modes
    – karim
    Apr 27, 2017 at 16:33
  • However, changing the cursor this way switches from "insert" to "overwrite" mode. That is, if the cursor is on top of a letter (say "b"), and you type "a" then b will be replaced by a, rather than inserting a before b, which is normal when the cursor is thin. Since you do not mention this important point I will vote this answer down.
    – user68186
    Apr 28, 2017 at 13:07

1 Answer 1

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Short answer press Insert key on your keyboard.

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  • Thanks! I also want to have the old insertion behavior when typing (not overwriting). I just edited my original question to reflect that.
    – user29020
    Dec 19, 2014 at 22:52
  • While this changes the appearance of the cursor, this also switches to overwrite modus. The question is about how to make the cursor more visible without changing the behavior of the editor.
    – vanadium
    Oct 22, 2023 at 10:06

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