Can I make Excel scroll smoothly without using middle-click?

Question

I must work with nightmare Excel files. (I didn't create them, I just have to work with them).

They were so big (more than 50 big columns and 100 big rows) then I must scroll up/down and use "<" and ">" buttons to scroll left and right. When I scroll around, Excel always jumps to the next column or row. This make me crazy!

Can I develop a plugin or add-in to make Excel just scroll smoothly, like web browsers do? If so, please give me some resource or just some keyword to learn how to do it.

Francoise

Have you tried reducing the zoom? – Burbot

How about linking to Access or creating a userform? – Caesura

Have a look here: superuser.com/questions/544523/… should also work the other way around... – Kenweigh

Eric could but he wont... excel.uservoice.com/forums/… – Morley

Answer 1

Another tip: when you click on Scroll lock on your keyboard, this will change the way your arrows keys will work.

Instead of moving from cell to cell, it will move the screen.

Yet, as Issun said, you cannot change Excel and AFAIK, you cannot "split" a cell when scrolling.

Furthermore, you can also change the number of rows that will scroll in the Windows Control Panel.

Above

seem this is the simplest thing that work for me! Thanks so much! – Francoise

After all these years of neglect the scroll lock key finally has a use. – Grimbald

It does cause the screen to move, but it is still jumping cell-by-cell and not by pixels. – Aggregation

Answer 2

I'm sorry to tell you but the snapping to the top of a cell when you scroll is a design choice by Microsoft that you simply cannot get around while working within Excel. You can middle click your mouse to enable smooth preview zoom with the mouse, but once you click the program, it will snap back.

Instead of looking for a plug-in, you should look for a different program to run the .xls files to work on them. Perhaps even something as simple as opening the document in Google docs might allow you to scroll normally.

That being said, if you are having the problem of the cells being so big that when you scroll down it skips over some cells, assign either a command button or keyboard shortcut to this macro:

Sub DownOne()
ActiveWindow.SmallScroll Down:=1
End Sub

I have used this on several occasions due to Excel skipping cells because of their size. The reason is that the mouse "single scroll down" is by default set to Down:=3 You might be able to map this macro to a mouse wheel scroll event, but I believe you need to add a .dll to use that event (ref: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/837910)

Spathic

Thanks for the resources & editting my question. Best regards! – Francoise

You're welcome. I just retagged it to include "Excel" since I know there are some very smart and cool people that follow that tag and your question should reach all applicable tags. :) – Spathic

Answer 3

Click down on scroll wheel (middle) of mouse (remember not turn, but click down). This will produce unique four way arrow. Now drag mouse up or down (or even sideways, left or right) and you will get slow smooth scroll.

Labana

it still snaps to the nearest grid edge when you let go of middle click, so its not really a usable solution if you want to edit your worksheet after the scroll – Myrmidon

When I use this I frequently get unintended horizontal scrolling as well as vertically. Then I'm even more lost. – Aam

Answer 4

Well, this is an extremely old thread, but I was having the same problem today.

Try going into your Mouse Settings in Control Panel and set your Wheel to Scroll 1 line at at a time.. I have some rows that are merged, and it was frustrating the hell out of me how quickly it would scroll past them. Turns out, I had my Wheel set to scroll 3 lines at a time (default I think).

Took me forever to figure it out (felt like an idiot once I did).

Note - You'll want to go back and set it back to 3 lines when you're done in Excel because it makes it painfully slow to scroll in your web browser.

Pridgen

Answer 5

Old thread I know, but I found a work around (if this is a repeat suggestion, sorry). Leave Column A alone, with "normal" sized cells. You can hide this column if you don't want to see it. Put all your contents in the remaining columns as you normally would and merge the content over several rows. Since column A is normal sized, you will get "smooth scrolling".

Wrongly

Answer 6

I had the same problem until I upgraded by office from 2014 to 2017. Now I have office 2017 [version 15.33 (170409)] and I can scroll by pixels using Mouse as well as Laptop trackpad. I am using MacOS Sierra version 10 operating system.

Wellwisher