Automatic Scrolling

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated April 22, 2021)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

Mice in the PC world have, for some time now, been designed with a special little wheel or lever between the two buttons. The purpose of the wheel or lever is to scroll quickly through a long document. If you do not have such a mouse you can still get the benefits of automatic scrolling through an undocumented Word command. Simply follow these steps:

Choose the Customize option from the Tools menu. Word displays the Customize dialog box.
Click on the Commands tab. A list of Word commands appears. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Commands tab of the Customize dialog box.

In the left side of the dialog box, select the All Commands option.
In the right side of the dialog box, select the AutoScroll option.
Drag the AutoScroll option to some place on one of your toolbars. When you release the mouse button, a button named Auto Scroll should appear on the toolbar.
Click on Close to close the Customize dialog box.

To use your new command, simply click on the new toolbar button. When you do, the vertical scroll bar at the right side of your screen changes. A new double arrow appears in it. As you move the arrow up and down along the scroll bar, you control how fast the document scrolls either up or down. To exit the scrolling mode, you can either press the Esc key or click the mouse button.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1168) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

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What is two more than 3?

2021-02-05 12:13:40

Jennifer K Stover

How do I UNDO this? I no longer want the autoscroll, I have an older version of Word - these instructions helped me to SET autoscroll, But now I want to go back to the default manual scroll but stuck on which setting to return to. I assumed it was through Tools > customize key board > all commands again....but not sure where to go from there. Help! Need this ASAP please.

2018-10-28 13:13:21

Phil

I've used Word for decades and always wondered why, especially in the age of web pages and html, that Word still follows a pagination paradigm.

I'm not interested in the scroll wheel but a long document, like a papyrus scroll, that goes on without the page breaks in between.

I use table quite a lot and want it to go beyond the bottom of the page. Are there Add ons that can do this?

2017-01-08 05:07:24

Thao Le

Hi!
Because I don't know where to post my question, so I write on this. It is not a comment, it's a question.

I have a problem with a wordsheet (about 119 pages). It is like when I want to go to an article in a word sheet, I spend a lot of time to roll the mouse to find the artical that I want.

Can you help me to find some tips that I can find the article more easily in a long words?

Thank you very much for spending time reading my question.

I look forwards to hearing from you.
Best regards,
Thao

2016-03-02 14:26:11

Eddie Seymour

Auto scroll still too fast for musicians readers etc. even when on slowest setting with mouse?

2015-07-21 17:15:47

alan roy

In Word 2013, the Auto Scroll is too fast. I want to use it for singing/playing chords on pop songs but it goes too fast. Any way of slowing it down? Thanks.
Alan

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