Is there a way to scroll, by pixel, instead of by cell, in either Excel or OpenOffice Calc?

Question

We have lots of spreadsheets that have lists of numbered sound files for an educational app. We use spreadsheet features such as "fill down" for the numbering, and we often use formulas to check whether contents of cells are the same when edits are made. We have the text associated with the sound in one column, and the corresponding translations into other languages in other columns. We will then send the spreadsheet with the English text for translation, and will receive it back with the translations populated via email.

Unfortunately, the cells are often large with lots of text. Scrolling is very difficult, because the cell is often clipped by the screen edges, and when you try to scroll, it jumps to the next cell, so you can never see the full cell contents.

Is there a way to scroll the document in either OpenOffice Calc or MS Excel to scroll - not by cell, but instead per amount of pixels (smooth scrolling)?
Thanks in advance for your guidance.

Answer 1

I see you've gotten a lot of unhelpful answers, and this one probably adds to that list. It is not possible to do this in Excel. There was a conversation with an Excel MVP in 2013 on this topic that confirms it.

You might be able to mitigate the problem by using the zoom feature. Or (if you are feeling more adventurous) use Excel's macro function to add features that will help you do the task you actually want to do. You are presumably not just scrolling for the fun of it, you probably want to look for something. A button that handles the searching etc. for you might solve the 'underlying issue'.

The web based Excel can view the spreadsheet by scrolling pixelwise, but if you try to enter text into a cell, the scroll position snaps to the cell's edges. This might be a workaround, if you are just viewing.

Finally, there is always the possibility that you can export the data to a better tool (e.g. PDF), or store it in a different tool that still lets you access it over Excel for those times when you need to. But we are shading into a discussion of databases and that's another topic entirely.

In the meantime vote for the feature to be implemented by Microsoft.

• Open the mentioned conversation, and under the question click I have the same question. No registration or login needed for this.
• Open the corresponding UserVoice item, and click Vote. The site will ask for an email address. The address is not verified, so a dummy email will do.

Answer 2

Yes, you can scroll smoothly in Excel if you drag with the middle mouse button.

Answer 3

I had the same issue. Chosing Excel because of the controlled cells for text. My solution was to keep the heights of the cells in the sheet, thus scrolling floats smoothly. The cells with text were made by merging many cells. That way i have big text cells, but the scrolling is based on normal small cells.

Answer 4

I tend to click and drag the vertical scrollbar in this situation. It's not ideal as I have to hold the mouse button down to prevent it jumping around to "snap to cell" while reading, but I find it easier to control than the middle-mouse-button-drag technique.

Answer 5

An alternative, to solving the problem of smooth scrolling directly, can be that you enlarge the field at the top, where the respective part of the current cell is shown.

There you can concentrate on the cell's content also enjoying line breaks, while navigating through the table using the arrows on your keyboard.

Since a cell's content is limited to 255 characters, enlarging that field sufficiently does not require losing sight for navigating the table.

Answer 6

Another Workaround would be VBA Macro which automatically reduces the height of a cell to the default value like 12.75 points after you leave the row. And if you select the cell, it sets the cell height to AutoFit, which shows the full text of a cell.

Code:

Public LastCell As Object

Private Sub Worksheet_SelectionChange(ByVal Target As Range)
    If Selection.CountLarge = 1 Then
        'MsgBox "Cell " & Target.Address & " clicked."
        If Not LastCell Is Nothing Then
            If LastCell.Row <> ActiveCell.Row Then
                'MsgBox "Set Entire Row Height of " & LastCell.Address & " from " & LastCell.RowHeight & " to a smaller value"
                LastCell.EntireRow.RowHeight = 12.75
                Set LastCell = Nothing
            End If
        End If
        'MsgBox "Set Entire Row from " & ActiveCell.RowHeight & " to AutoFit"
        ActiveCell.EntireRow.AutoFit
        Set LastCell = ActiveCell
    End If
End Sub

Output:

If you need to view the complete content of a sheet, you could add a feature which sets AutoFit for all rows by selecting a column after your usual content.