Adobe Fireworks CS3 strange Hand pointer Tool error The hand or pointer cursor gets selected and the user cannot select any other tool. It is a very weird problem with Fireworks versions (Macromedia 8, Adobe CS2, CS3, CS4 and CS5). It has happened in my laptop running Windows XP Professional SP3 first with Fireworks CS3, then opened Fireworks 8 and still the same, […]

32 comments

• Wow, good suggestion. I did the minimize/maximize trick, and viola!

  This has been plaguing me for the last few months, in both Fireworks 8 and Photoshop CS. WTF? Never had the problem before. Guess some software patch (OS, driver, or application) “fixed” something, and broke something else.

  Thanks!

• Hello, I have the same problem and I think I was able to turn it back to normal when I press the space bar since it’s the shortcut key of the hand tool.

• hi! i was just about to throw the laptop outside the window when i read your suggestion. thanks!

• Thanks too !

• 10x

• Wow, thanks a lot for sharing this information. I had my axe sharpened and was going to do something stupid, when a thought struck me: “Ask auntie Google when in times of trouble” and she did not disappoint me :)

• xoxoxoxoxox

• Thank you.

• I got the error again and this time it did not fix it self with the minimize/maximize trick, but I found this post on the adobe forum, which says that you should use the text tool (T) and that worked.

  http://forums.adobe.com/message/1277696#1277696

• Hooray!
  The hand error appeared again and I created a text box and it solved the problem.
  Thank you Olaf!

• THANK YOU! The text tool did the trick for me. This has been bugging me for ages! Thank you

• I’m running Fireworks CS3 on Vista. I found that simply minimizing the window doesn’t work, but going into another application (such as Firefox) fixes it. Quite strange.

• Maybe that works too for XP users, when the error happens again I’ll try.
  Post updated. Thank you John! :-)

• I am using Vista and this has happened to me several times. Usually minimize/maximize got it to work again, but not today. I tried everything listed here and nothing go it to work.

  So I played around with some other things and I found another solution.

  Go to File > Preview in Browser > Preview in firefox.exe

  That did the trick :)

• Thank you Mike! I’ll add it to the list

• I just choose the tool and press spacebar, works everytime. :D

• spacebar guy = LEGEND. Thank you so much.

• THANKS for the solution: “selecting the Text tool (T shortcut key)”

  It works!!! :)

• This problem still exists in Fireworks CS4. I had this problem for an hour. I closed the program and re-started it, but nothing happened. And then all of a sudden when I changed screen from Fireworks to Firefox, it started working again. Very strange.

• Hey, sometimes happens that this tool activates single and we must to minimize and maximize the fw,
  but is actually a tool that blocks the canvas to avoid disappointment, I think that is good. Regards!

• Oh, thank you, thank you for the solution! It’s so easy and unlogical, but it’s working :)

• The windows minimize-maximize works perfect thanks for the tip

• Thank you, I was going crazy.

• Thank You!! it saved me a whole hour at the very least

• Thanks for this info, help me a lot!!! XD

• Iv had my photoshop stuck like this for weeks, no matter how many times i rebooted the computer nothing changed. Pressing the ALT key and clicking on a tool did the trick! Thank You!xxx

• Thanks so much… saved me a lot of stress…

• CS4 on WinXP confirmed. Minimizing and then maximizing the window makes it go away.

• thanks man

• spacebar guy = LEGEND. Thank you so much

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• Here is hhat I did to solve this same issue:
  1- Right click over Adobe FireworksCS3 exxutable
  2-Click on properties
  3- Click on Compatibility tab
  4- Click “Disable display scaling on high DPI settings”
  5- Apply , and OK
  That’s it.