How to Adjust Scroll Bar in Excel (5 Cases)

To adjust the scroll bar, follow the steps below:

Select the whole row after the last row of the data table.
Press the Ctrl + Shift + Down Arrow keys to select all the rows below.
Under the Home tab, go to the Editing group> Clear > Clear All or press the Ctrl + ‘-’ buttons.
Press Ctrl + S to save the document.

After that, you will see that the vertical scroll bar is adjusted. Use the Right Arrow to select all the columns on the right side and follow the same process to adjust the horizontal scroll bar.

Sometimes, the scroll bar in Excel becomes smaller because of scrolling down or right. In this case, if users drag the scroll bar up and down or left and right then, the cell moves fast. As a result, it creates problems.

In this Excel tutorial, you will learn how to adjust the scroll bar. Users need to do this to ease the navigation between cells.

Here is an overview of how the scroll bar can be adjusted. You can see that, after clearing the data outside the used range, the scroll bar is adjusted to its default size.

Why Do We Need to Adjust the Scroll Bar in Excel?

You may have unwanted data in the 100th, 200th, or even in lower rows after completing your task with a large dataset. You may forget to delete a row of that dataset or any charts and notes of it. This makes the used range of the worksheet large. As a result, the size of the scroll bar becomes tiny and the situation makes scrolling faster. The size of the scroll bar is determined by the size of the used range in an Excel worksheet. Here is a scenario of this issue.

You can see that moving the scroll box a bit downward jumps to a very distant row (7494th row). Also, the movement of the column range by the horizontal scroll bar is too fast. It’s because the worksheet has data in distant ranges. For this reason, we need to adjust the scroll bar.

However, if you use the scroll wheel of the mouse or click the arrow buttons in the scroll bar, you won’t face this problem. The scroll bar doesn’t need to be adjusted in that case.

5 Cases to Adjust Scroll Bar in Excel

Earlier, you’ve seen that the appearance of a tiny scroll bar makes the scrolling too fast. So you should adjust it to its default size. Here, I have discussed 5 different cases when the scroll bar needs to be adjusted:

Case 1: Clearing Unnecessary Data Outside the Used Range

After deleting the data in the data range, there can be some data or comments or notes ignored by the users. By following the procedures here, you can adjust the scroll bar by removing any unseen data.

To adjust the scroll bar by clearing unnecessary data outside the used range, follow the steps below:

Select the whole row after the last row of the data table.
Press the Ctrl + Shift + Down Arrow keys together.
Under the Home tab, select Editing > Clear > Clear All or press the Ctrl + ‘-‘ keys.
Press Ctrl + S to save the document.
You can see that the vertical scroll bar is adjusted.
Similarly, select the whole column after the last column.
Press the Ctrl + Shift + Right Arrow keys together.
Clear all data and save the document.
You can see that the horizontal scroll bar is adjusted too.

The advantage of this method is that you don’t have to find any element like cell content or comments manually. All the unnecessary data gets deleted and thus the scroll bar gets adjusted as well.

However, if the above procedures cannot adjust the scroll bar, follow the steps below:

Press Alt + F11 to open the Visual Basic editor.
Select View > Immediate or press Ctrl + G to open the Immediate window.

Now, type UsedRange in the Immediate window.
4. Press Enter.

Go back to your sheet and see that the scroll bar gets adjusted.

Read More: How to Insert Scroll Bar in Excel

Case 2: Removing Hidden Charts or Other Objects in Lower Cells

Sometimes users may forget to remove charts while deleting data from a large dataset. This may cause the same problem as shown earlier. In that case, you should remove the existing charts.

To remove unseen or hidden charts from a worksheet, follow the steps below:

Press Ctrl + G to open the Go To dialog box.
Select Special.
Choose Objects from the Go To Special dialog box and click OK.
Then the charts or other objects will be selected.
Press the Delete button on the keyboard.
Move the scroll box to the top and save the document.
You can see that the scroll bar gets adjusted.

If you see that the problem still persists, then there may be completely hidden charts, just like a hidden column or row. In that case, you should unhide the charts and remove them.

To unhide hidden charts, follow the steps below:

Under the Home tab, select Editing > Find & Select > Selection Pane.
Now, toggle the unhide icon beside the chart name.

Follow the steps shown in this method to remove the chart.

Read More: How to Remove Scroll Bar in Excel

Case 3: Dragging Vertical Ellipsis to Right or Left

This issue concerns adjusting the horizontal scroll bar. If the horizontal scroll bar becomes wide, it may cover the area of the sheet names. It can cause problems for users to view the data in the sheets properly.

In this case, you need to drag the vertical ellipsis (three vertical dots) to the right or left to adjust the horizontal scroll bar. You can see the procedure in the following GIF.

Case 4: Limiting Scroll Area

If you want to work in a fixed range of your Excel worksheet, you can set a scroll area for the sheet. This can also adjust the scroll bar as well.

To adjust the scroll bar by limiting scroll area, follow the steps below:

Select Developer > Properties.
In the Properties window, define the ScrollArea.
Close the window.
Now, your worksheet scroll bar is adjusted and cannot be scrolled to a longer range.

Case 5: Resizing Objects, Charts or Shapes

Presence of large objects or shapes can be another reason for fast scrolling. In that case, we have to adjust the scroll bar.

To adjust the scroll bar, just resize or delete the object or shapes to a smaller shape. See the image below.

Here, the bar chart is resized and the note is deleted. The scroll bar gets adjusted as well.

Download the Workbook

Adjust Scroll Bar.xlsm

Conclusion

To sum up, you will learn some important necessary tips on how to adjust the scroll bar in Excel. Here, we discussed some different scenarios and showed how to adjust the scroll bar in those situations. If you have any questions or feedback, regarding this article, please share them in the comment box.

Frequently Asked Questions

How to hide or display the scroll bar in Excel?

To hide or display the scroll bar in Excel, follow the steps below:

Select the File tab.
After selecting Options, choose Advanced.
To show the scroll bars, uncheck or select the Show horizontal scroll bar and Show vertical scroll bar checkboxes under Display options for this workbook.

Can I customize the appearance of the scroll bar in Excel?

Excel does not provide extensive customization options for the appearance of the scroll bar. The appearance is generally determined by the theme and settings of your Excel application.

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