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

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated September 22, 2021)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


4

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.

  6. 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.
  7. 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. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Renaming Worksheets Based On a List

Renaming a worksheet within a macro is a relatively easy task. When you start renaming based on a range of names, though, ...

Discover More

Defining Default Printers on a Document Level

If you use multiple printers, you may wonder how to set each document in Word to remember which printer to use for that ...

Discover More

Limiting Searching to a Column

When you use Find and Replace, Excel normally looks through all the cells in a worksheet. You may want to limit the ...

Discover More

Program Successfully in Excel! This guide will provide you with all the information you need to automate any task in Excel and save time and effort. Learn how to extend Excel's functionality with VBA to create solutions not possible with the standard features. Includes latest information for Excel 2024 and Microsoft 365. Check out Mastering Excel VBA Programming today!

More ExcelTips (menu)

Removing Cells from a Selected Range

Select a large range of cells and you may later want to remove a few cells from that selection. This is not as easy as ...

Discover More

Jumping to a Specific Worksheet

Want to make fast work of moving from one worksheet to another? Here's how to do the task when you have a lot of ...

Discover More

Choosing Direction after Enter On a Workbook Basis

Excel lets you specify how it should behave when you press Enter. If you change this behavior, Excel assumes you want it ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is three more than 1?

2020-12-31 16:40:51

Phillip

Hello, and Thank you for this. I have found that once I follow the directions perfectly, and then save the workbook, close and reopen the workbook, this setting is gone. That is the user can scroll at will, and the range entered in the ScrollArea is gone, that is it is empty as if never happened. Now while I still have the workbook open, the scrolling is limited and it works just fine. It is not persistent and not saved with the workbook. Any ideas?


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"


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the menu interface (Excel 97, Excel 2000, Excel 2002, or Excel 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.