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How do I stop PowerPoint's vertical scroll bar from changing slides?

Anonymous
2012-01-13T04:30:46+00:00

Hi - how do I restrict the vertical scroll bar from changing slides in PowerPoint. I want it only to move up and down on the slide I'm looking at. The left / right scroll bar only relates to the current slide, so why doesn't the vertical scroll bar? I often use the area around a slide as a notes area or work with pictures that are bigger than the canvas. If I use the vertical scroll bar at all to move around the slide, it's very frustrating, as it will essentially change the content out from underneath me.

Help!

Thanks,

Jeff

Microsoft 365 and Office | PowerPoint | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2012-01-13T07:52:48+00:00

    Do you mean you're zooming in to a slide and scroll to the top / bottom and it jumps to the next slide? Yep that annoys the **** out of me too. There's no real solution but what we do is (temporarily) add a couple of shapes on the slide master. One an inch or so above the top and another below the bottom. Not an ideal answer but it helps the rage.

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  1. Steve Rindsberg 99,156 Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2012-01-13T15:57:57+00:00

    Totally annoying, isn't it?

    One workaround: 

    Use the tab key to cycle through the shapes on your slide.  When you tab to a shape, PPT will move the window so the shape appears, even if it was offscreen beforehand.

    To speed this up so you don't need to tab through endless shapes, move the off-slide shapes to back (the backmost shape will be selected immediately if you first select nothing then press tab).  Or move them to the front, and use Shift+Tab to cycle from front to back.

    Once you've selected the shape, you can zoom in and the zoom will keep the shape on screen.

    Not perfect, but it takes out some of the maddening.  ;-)

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16 additional answers

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-04-22T09:33:57+00:00

    Please Microsoft, do something about it, it's so annoying !

    10+ people found this answer helpful.
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  2. Anonymous
    2018-05-21T15:22:22+00:00

    This bug has been present for decades, and it is super f... annoying. Even more provocative is it that MS developers do not read this forum. The number of relevant remarks on this thread alone should cause MS developers to cancel the next weekend off and concentrate on getting the problem fixed, but they're stuck is sirup. What a disgrace that such a dominating company is THAT ignorant when it comes to perceiving user feedback.

    Why don't MS put up an official list of registered user-reported bugs that are due for a fix, with an approximate date? That would be a fresh approach from this totally crystallized company.

    4 people found this answer helpful.
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  3. Anonymous
    2016-04-01T05:45:58+00:00

    Me too!! This is driving me absolutely insane, Microsoft. Help a sister out here!

    2 people found this answer helpful.
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