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

Limiting Scroll Area

by Allen Wyatt
(last updated June 25, 2018)

3

When putting together a worksheet for others to use, you may want to limit the cells that the user can access. One esoteric way to add limits is to use the following steps:

  1. Right-click the sheet tab for the sheet on which you want to place a limit.
  2. In the resulting Context menu, choose View Code. The VBA editor appears, displaying the code window for the worksheet whose tab you right-clicked.
  3. If the Properties window is not visible, press F4.
  4. In the Properties Window, place the insertion point in the box to the right of the Scroll Area property. (See Figure 1.)

    5. Figure 1. The Properties window in the VBA Editor.

  5. Enter the range in which you want navigation possible. For instance, if you want the user to only be able to access the cells in the range A3:D15, then enter that range.
  6. Close the VBA Editor.

That's it; you can no longer move to or select cells outside the range you specified in step 5. The range you enter must be a contiguous range; you cannot enter a non-contiguous group of cell addresses.

Note:

If you would like to know how to use the macros described on this page (or on any other page on the ExcelTips sites), I've prepared a special page that includes helpful information. Click here to open that special page in a new browser tab.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2669) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Excel (Excel 2007 and later) here: Limiting Scroll Area.

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. ...

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What is one less than 3?

2018-10-07 19:13:59

Robin Anson

When I set the scroll area, CTRL-END no longer takes me to the last used cell (even though it is in the scroll area).

CTRL+LEFT or CTRL+DOWN take me to the last cell in the row or column, but the page doesn't scroll to that.

Moving the selected cell with the arrow keys will move the worksheet on the screen, but only if the selected cell is visible. If it isn't visible the worksheet doesn't move as the selection does.

2017-03-21 06:37:17

Willy Vanhaelen

Simply by erasing the range so that ScrollArea is blank.

2017-03-20 10:15:03

John \"Bear Claw\" Wagner

So now, how do you reverse this?
"Bear Claw"

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