Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Word 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Word, click here: Controlling Scroll Bars.

Controlling Scroll Bars

by Allen Wyatt
(last updated October 24, 2020)

At the bottom and right side of the document there are scroll bars that control what part of the document you are viewing at any given time. If you need more room to view a document, or if you are using Word without a mouse, you can turn off the scroll bars. To control display of the scroll bars, follow these steps:

Choose Options from the Tools menu. Word displays the Options dialog box.
Make sure the View tab is selected. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The View tab of the Options dialog box.

Use the Horizontal Scroll Bar check box to turn the horizontal scroll bar on or off.
Use the Vertical Scroll Bar check box to turn the vertical scroll bar on or off.
Click on OK.

With the scroll bars turned off, you must use the cursor control keys to move through the document.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1001) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Controlling Scroll Bars.

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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