Excel and scrolling

[orion7144]

I just had to reinstall Office and can't remember how to do this. I work with some large spreadsheets and use the scroll bar to navigate to certain rows (unknown row number). Since I reinstalled I no longer see the cells as I am scrolling but before I could see them. I believe I had to enable something in the setting but can't for the life of me find it.

 

[dderolph]

I don't think it's normally something you have to enable. In fact, it's the way Excel normally works, and I do not think that can be disabled unless the scroll bars themselves are disabled. So, I have no clue why you're not seeing the row indicator when you drag the scroll bag. That is what you mean, isn't it, dragging the scrollbar with your mouse? What version of Office are you using?

 

[orion7144]

I can see the row indicator. What I can see are the actual rows as I am scrolling with the scroll bar. I do not always know which row I need to goto so it is easier if I can see the rows as I am scrolling. I can see them when I use the wheel on the mouse but that is too slow.

 

[dderolph]

I can see the row indicator. What I can see are the actual rows as I am scrolling with the scroll bar.

I presume you left the word "not" out of the second sentence above. In other words, you "... can not see the actual rows ...". I don't know where you got the notion that the body of the worksheet actually scrolls while you're dragging the scroll bar. Excel simply does not do that. But, if you drag the scroll bar and stop, the worksheet should jump to the row displayed in the row indicator when you stopped dragging.

I'd say you need to explore some other techniques. One thing you can do is name a range, then go directly to that range. Of course, you can also you the GoTo function to go to a specific cell address. As far as scrolling with a mouse, do you use auto-scroll? With my Logitech wheel mouse, if I click on the wheel, auto-scroll is activated. That's a much easier and faster way to do mouse scrolling that just scrolling by turning the mouse wheel. And, keep in mind other navigation key combinations such as Ctrl/End, Ctrl/Home, Ctrl in conjunction with the arrow keys, and PageUp and PageDown.

 

[orion7144]

Well it works on 4 of my other computers but not the one I need it to work on.

 

[dderolph]

What version of Excel are you using? Is the version on the other computers you mentioned the same? I've been using Excel 97 for a long time and, as I said, it does not actually scroll the page while I drag the scrollbar. It shows the row or column indicator, and jumps to that part of the sheet when I release the mouse. However, I just got on a computer with Excel 2002 and it does work the way you think your Excel should work. So, looks like there's a difference in how different versions of Excel work. I see no settings in either Excel 97 or 2002 to control this.

 

[dderolph]

orion7144, what's your assessment of this situation now?

 

[orion7144]

They are all running office 2000 SR-1. The one machine still does not do what I want it to.

 

[orion7144]

Well it turns out that some of my other boxes were using Office XP add on's that enabled this for some reason. I upgraded my main box to Office XP and it is working like I need it to.