Tip #4553 - Why Am I Back There Again?
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Why
Am I Back There Again?
Have you ever
scrolled a long way through an MS Excel worksheet and, while you were
looking around, hit an arrow key to move? If so, you found yourself
right back where you started, didn't you?
What happened?
I mean, you were
a hundred lines down and now you're right back at the top.
Don't panic! You're
not hallucinating, the program isn't malfunctioning and you didn't
do anything wrong.
Here's the deal:
Scrolling (with either the scroll bars or the mouse wheel) is simply
changing the view on the screen, but not actually selecting new cells.
In fact, if you
pay attention to the selected cell outline, you'll find that it scrolls
out of sight, staying right where it was.
So, when you hit
an arrow key (or the Enter key), you take the selection of the original
cell and move it only one cell away. The program then zips the view
back to the cell you just selected, giving you the sense that something
went wrong.
If you want to
select a cell in the current view, you'll need to use your mouse to
select it. That will keep the view right where you put it.
On the other hand,
you could use this to your advantage to "take a look around"
while scrolling. You can then hit an arrow key to zoom right back
to the location you left, completely skipping having to scroll back!
Either way, now
you know what's going on and you'll hopefully find Excel's movements
a little less mystifying!
~ April
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