Excel Scroll Wheel Shortcuts

I started on a Mac, where the mouse had one big button. Later, I moved to a PC, with a two button mouse. For the past few years I’ve used a mouse with two buttons and a scroll wheel.

Scroll Through Excel

At first, I completely ignored the scroll wheel, and found it faster to drag the scroll bar, than to move the scroll wheel. Now I use the wheel occasionally, but more often in Firefox or Word, than in Excel.

Use the Scroll Wheel With Outlines

AlexJ, who shared his technique to hide Excel rows with outlining a few days ago, also uses the scroll wheel to show and hide outline levels.

  1. Point to a cell within the outlined range
  2. Press the Shift key, then roll the scroll wheel down, to hide the outline levels for that cell.
  3. Or, press the Shift key, then roll the scroll wheel up, to show the outline levels for that cell.

Use the Scroll Wheel to Zoom

He also reminded me that you can use the scroll wheel to zoom in or out on the worksheet.

  1. Point to a cell within the outlined range
  2. Press the Ctrl key, then roll the scroll wheel down, to hide the outline levels for that cell.
  3. Or, press the Shift key, then roll the scroll wheel up, to show the outline levels for that cell.

Use the Scroll Wheel to Scroll

And yes, you can even use the scroll wheel to scroll. Really fast!

  1. Click the scroll wheel, and a four-headed arrow appears
  2. Move the mouse up, down, left or right, and a single arrow appears, pointing in the direction that the mouse is moving.
  3. The Excel sheet scrolls very quickly, increasing in speed as you move the single arrow toward the edge of the worksheet.
  4. To stop the scrolling, tap the scroll wheel, or click a mouse button.

Other Scroll Wheel Shortcuts?

Do you use the scroll wheel? Do you have any other shortcuts for it?

My Logitech mouse with its scroll wheel
My Logitech mouse with its scroll wheel

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6 thoughts on “Excel Scroll Wheel Shortcuts”

  1. Somehow, about 3 or so years ago, I was able to change the scroll wheel to zoom within Excel 2000, without pressing the ctrl key first.
    Now, in order to scroll, I have to press the ctrl key and the wheel to scroll.
    While using the scroll whell to zoom has worked really great in AutoCAD, it’s getting old in Excel.
    Does anyone know how to change it back?
    I wish I could remember how I did it, but I don’t, and looking through the options in Excel 2007 doesn’t show me anything on changing it.
    I’ve also been through the control panel in windows, and cannot identify in mouse, keyboard, settings, regional, etc… that allows me to change the scroll from zoom back to scroll.

  2. I’ve just come accress the same problem. I was able to click the scroll wheel and then scroll it to zoom, now it’s just decided to stop working. The other one is that I could push the scroll wheel to the side and I could scroll to the left and right that way, which has stopped working as well. I have not a clue how to change this back unless I start using the control key to zoom with – how annoying!

  3. Hello Steve & Emily,
    I am not sure of the latest versions 2007 or other, but in 2002, you can change this.
    select Tools>Options. That opens a new window for excel options.
    Go to the tab “General” and then place a checkmark before “Zoom on roll with Intellimouse”.
    If checkmark is placed before this, the sheet zooms in when you scroll up and zooms out when your scroll down. I suggest not to use this if the sheet you have has large volumes of data.
    So it is better not to have this choice enabled. Zoom feature is not used as extensively as scrolling feature and hence it is better to scroll using the mouse’s scroll wheel, unless you are more comfortable with key board navigation shortcuts.

  4. Satya’s comment helped me solve this in Excel 2007. However, to get to the “Zoom on roll with Intellimouse” option you need to click the Microsoft Office button at the top left of the screen, select “Excel options” on the bottom right, then click on Advanced in the left pane.

  5. Just came across this by accident but if hold the Ctrl key and operate the scroll wheel over a PivotTable (with more than one row label) it will Expand/Collapse all.

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