cursor sometimes changes from a vertical line to an underscore in Rstudio

Question

I am using R-studio 3.3.3 on a 64 bit windows 10 Acer laptop. I am new to programming in R and I just discovered that my cursor sometimes changes from a vertical line to an underscore in R-studio. Could someone help tell me why?

score 86 · Accepted Answer · edited Sep 14 '20 at 06:56

86

Press the Insert button on your keyboard.

edited Sep 14 '20 at 06:56

Wai Ha Lee

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answered Nov 08 '17 at 04:34

Jay Zamsol

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Some keyboards don't have the Insert button, so for me for example, I needed to press fn+E – YellowStrawHatter Aug 24 '22 at 13:20

score 29 · Answer 2 · edited Sep 14 '20 at 06:58

This is a very common operation in different software and platforms. The underscore means that you are in Overwrite mode, meaning that anything you type will overwrite the text at the cursor position.

The "normal" cursor indicates that you are in insert mode and all text you type will force the rest of the line to move further.

Switching between these modes happens by pressing the Insert key on your keyboard (usually there are two of them, one somewhere above of the arrow keys and another on the Num Pad).

score 4 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 21 '18 at 16:58

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press ins button or fn+ins to solve this problem underscore cursor means you are on overwrite mode

answered Jun 21 '18 at 16:58

Abhi

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score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 21 '20 at 20:20

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Right click and select Reload.

answered Jan 21 '20 at 20:20

Vusi Bilankulu

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This is useful if you work on a remote computer, especially while working between different platforms (like mac and windows, like in my case) and the shortcuts don't work. – Ursulka Siete Jan 31 '22 at 08:00

score 2 · Answer 5 · edited Sep 14 '20 at 06:58

2

This can happen when trying to press the Delete key - the Insert key is to left side of Delete.

Press Insert again to correct this.

edited Sep 14 '20 at 06:58

Wai Ha Lee

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answered Jan 25 '20 at 06:39

Ritik Kamboj

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score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Mar 15 '23 at 16:04

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I was able to solve the issue by simply clicking 'insert' keyboard key. The cursor in RStudio changed from underscore to vertical.

answered Mar 15 '23 at 16:04

N Acharya

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score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Sep 14 '20 at 00:37

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shift + insert at a same time from keyboard

answered Sep 14 '20 at 00:37

Sazzad Hossain

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score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Feb 13 '23 at 22:15

For those using HP laptops: the only solution will be to turn on your numeric key num which is below the home key at the top right corner of your keypad/keyboard; on the same key, you'll see the inscription "lock". Then hit alt key on the left of the long spacebar on your keypad/keyboard. Then hold it together with the 0 key on the bottom right side of the keypad/keyboard with the inscription ins which is the same as the insert key. You should be able to get back the vertical cursor line. Hope this works for someone.

cursor sometimes changes from a vertical line to an underscore in Rstudio

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