Scroll bar
A vertical or horizontal bar commonly on the far right or bottom of a window that lets you move the window viewing area up, down, left, or right. Most people today are familiar with scroll bars because of the need to scroll up and down on almost every Internet web page.
Scroll bar overview
Below is an image of a Microsoft Windows window with a vertical and horizontal scroll bar.
How to scroll and use the scroll bar
Scroll bars are utilized using the mouse, touchpad, or keyboard. With a mouse, you can move the scroll bar by clicking the scroll arrow at either end of the scroll bars. You may also click an empty portion of the scroll bar or click-and-drag the scroll box. With a keyboard, you can use the up or down arrow keys to scroll a few lines at a time. The Page Up and Page Down keys or the spacebar scroll down one page at a time.
Most computers today include a mouse with a wheel or button, allowing you to scroll up and down and sometimes left to right. See the IntelliMouse definition for additional information about these mice.
On an Apple computer, some programs, such as Safari, may not display a scroll bar. To scroll up and down in these programs, touch two fingers on your touchpad or touch mouse and drag them up or down.
See our touchpad page for other methods of scrolling using a laptop touchpad.
How do I use or enable the horizontal scroll bar?
The horizontal scroll bar is often missing or disabled because the text or other displayed content is wrapped or resized to prevent horizontal scrolling. For example, this web page has no horizontal scrolling because it's designed to fit the screen. If you view a page with horizontal scrolling, you can scroll to the right by clicking the right scroll arrow on the horizontal scroll bar.
To enable horizontal scrolling on a long text document, disable word wrap. When working with images or other documents, zooming in also enables horizontal scrolling.
How many scroll bars are in a window?
There is often only one scroll bar in a window, which is the vertical scroll bar that lets you scroll up and down in a window. Many programs automatically wrap the text in a window as you change the window size or zoom into the document. Programs with a fixed window size without word wrap display a horizontal scroll bar as the window is resized. For these programs, there would be two scroll bars, a horizontal and a vertical scroll bar.
Should I use "scroll bar" or "scrollbar" in my writing?
Both "scroll bar" and "scrollbar" are correct depending on the context and where it's used or the style guide being followed. For most style guides, "scroll bar" as two words is used when describing the bar or feature that lets you scroll up, down, left, or right. When describing a configuration, object, or setting, "scrollbar" as one word is used.
Horizontal scroll, Mouse terms, Scroll, Slider, Software terms, Vertical scroll, Wheel mouse