How to Completely Disable ‘Animations’ (Smooth Scrolling and Cursor Gliding) in Microsoft Office 365

Modern versions of Microsoft Office 365 (including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) feature a deeply integrated animation engine. When you scroll through a document, the page glides smoothly. When you type, the cursor does not instantly jump from letter to letter; instead, it physically slides across the screen to its new position.

While Microsoft designed these fluid animations to make the software feel modern and touch-friendly, they are universally despised by fast typists and power users. The cursor gliding effect creates a noticeable visual latency—it looks and feels as though the software is lagging behind your keystrokes. In Excel, smooth scrolling can make it difficult to rapidly select precise cells. If you rely on muscle memory and want Office to feel instantaneous, rigid, and responsive, you must completely disable these hardware-accelerated animations.

Disabling Office Animations via Windows Settings

Because Microsoft Office hooks directly into the core Windows 11 accessibility framework, the most reliable way to disable the cursor glide and smooth scrolling is to turn off animations at the operating system level.

1. Click the Start button and select the Settings gear icon (or press Windows Key + i).
2. In the left-hand navigation sidebar, click on Accessibility.
3. In the main panel, click on Visual effects.
4. Look for the toggle switch labelled Animation effects.
5. Click the switch to turn it Off.
6. Close the Settings app and restart any open Microsoft Office applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint).

(Note: This will also disable window-minimizing animations across the rest of Windows 11, resulting in a much snappier overall system experience).

Disabling Animations via the Registry Editor (Office Only)

If you want to keep Windows 11 animations but specifically kill the cursor glide inside Microsoft Office, you must use the Registry Editor.

1. Press the Windows Key + R to open the Run dialogue box.
2. Type regedit and press Enter (Click Yes on the UAC prompt).
3. Navigate to this exact path:
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common
4. Look for a folder named Graphics. If it does not exist, right-click the Common folder, select New > Key, and name it Graphics.
5. Click on the Graphics folder to select it.
6. In the blank space on the right, right-click, select New, and choose DWORD (32-bit) Value.
7. Name the new value exactly DisableAnimations.
8. Double-click DisableAnimations and set the “Value data” to 1.
9. Click OK, close the Registry Editor, and restart your computer.

When you reopen Word or Excel, the cursor will act like a traditional terminal block. It will instantly snap to the next letter as you type, and spreadsheets will scroll rigidly row-by-row, completely eliminating the sluggish feeling of modern Office apps.