What does scrolllock do? Scroll Lock what is it on the keyboard. New Use Cases

The Scroll Lock button is used to change the behavior of the cursor on the computer screen. It is most often used in Excel to view large tables.

When Scroll Lock is turned off (by default it is turned off) - by clicking on the arrows on the keyboard, the cursor will move to adjacent cells Excel document. Wherein appearance the tables will not change in any way.

When Scroll Lock is enabled, when you press the arrows on the keyboard, the cursor will not move to other cells in the Excel document, but the table itself will move. This can be handy when you don't feel like it or it's awkward to use the scroll bar.

Where to find and how to enable Scroll Lock

Large full-size keyboards usually have separate button Scroll Lock, as well as an indicator showing its activity:

On laptop keyboards, Scroll Lock is usually combined with other keys to save space:

In this case, you must press the Scroll Lock button together with the FN key. We have .

Some programs additionally display Scroll Lock activity. Here's what it looks like in Excel, for example:

There is no Scroll Lock button on the keyboard, what should I do?

On some laptop keyboards, manufacturers do not place a Scroll Lock button at all. In this case, the most in a simple way will use the on-screen keyboard:

It can be found in Programs in the Start menu. It will be faster to use the search - start typing the words “on-screen” in it and the only result will be the on-screen keyboard.

If you still have questions, be sure to also do not forget to read our other articles about special buttons on the keyboard - and.

On standard computer keyboard There is one button whose purpose is unclear to many users. As you probably guessed, this is the Scroll Lock key. Let's try to figure out what this key was intended for and what its features are.

A little history

The name “Scroll Lock” translated from English means “lock scrolling”. This key is located in the same block with service keys « Print Screen" and "Pause/Break" (usually between them). She first appeared on standard keyboard a computer that many cannot even imagine - the IBM PC XT.

In those distant times graphic mode operating system was not even dreamed of - all information was displayed on the screen line by line in text form. In this mode, new lines appeared at the very bottom of the screen, moving old information up. Naturally, if a sufficiently large array of data was displayed, the user simply physically did not have time to read everything, and therefore was invented special button“Scroll Lock”, which stops text scrolling and turns it on again when pressed again.

Scroll Lock functions

Of course, in modern operating systems Using the “Scroll Lock” key for its intended purpose is no longer possible, but it still remains active. The button has an indicator showing whether it is activated currently or not. Typically, in the active (pressed) state, the user can control the scrolling of the screen using the keyboard. You can see this for yourself by opening large table V Microsoft Excel. Press "Scroll Lock" and see how it scrolls now Workspace using arrows.

In Linux-like operating systems, this key is still used for its intended purpose - stopping text scrolling. This key is used in some games (Delta Force, Cossacks, etc.), and some utilities actively use key combinations with “Scroll Lock”.

(When the mouse did not yet have a wheel....)

In general, there are several of these “mysterious” keys. Not all of them “survived” when transferred to laptop keyboards, but on “full-fledged” keyboards desktop computers they are present. It should be especially noted that keyboard manufacturers are trying to cram into their products additional keys, but the trouble is that the code generated by the keyboard when you press this key must be understood by that application program, with which the user is currently working. And not all programmers are delighted with the appearance of new keys on the keyboard. It is much easier for them to read the code generated by such “mysterious” keys and perform some action by pressing them, than to focus on the release of “original” keyboards, which may not yet catch on.

But let's return to our keys. Among these “mysterious” keys, in addition to Scroll Lock, you can also name such incomprehensible keys as Num Lock and Sys rq. To understand their purpose, you need to plunge into quite recent history. When standards personal computers were just being formed, and there was a “natural selection”, including the keys on the keyboard.

The first “application for a standard,” in my opinion, can be considered the 83-key keyboard for PC XT, the prototype of a personal computer based on the i8088/i8086 processor, where the designated keys first appeared. Judging by the literature, 84-key and 86-key keyboards could be supplied with them, but the logical continuation of this development of the keyboard was the 101/102-key keyboard, supplied with personal computers based on the 286 processor and beyond, built according to the architecture that received name AT, unlike the previous HT, and Scroll button Lock and his comrades migrated there too.

But why is it needed?

The Scroll Lock key was necessary to interact with the cursor keys, do you see those up-down, left-right arrows on the keyboard? So, pressing this key switched the scrolling mode, either you moved the cursor with these keys, or the entire screen. This was required by IBM and Microsoft because they were slightly behind Apple, which initially did not have this key on their keyboards as unnecessary. But then they added it too.

In general, the meaning of the existence of these keys has long been lost, but they remain on keyboards both as a tribute to tradition and as a tribute to rare programs that may be able to use them.

Well, briefly on other incomprehensible keys.

Num Lock key – switches numeric keypad into cursor control mode (replacing, if necessary, the dedicated arrow keys).

But the Sys Rq key is a very interesting key that does not have a clear purpose. Or rather, practically none. This key is for advanced users and is used in combination with other keys. Accordingly, you need to know these keyboard shortcuts.

In general, the history of the development of personal computers is fraught with many secrets and absurdities, I have already mentioned one absurdity, the restriction on the upper limit of the available random access memory at 640 Kilobytes. But this is of interest only to specialists.

The other keys are all intuitive

The Scroll Lock key is one of the most mysterious on the keyboard. At first glance, she doesn't do anything. But this is not true at all.
Psychologists and esotericists claim that the average person uses only 10% of his brain. And it’s impossible to disagree with this! Take, for example, the fact that a person does not even use his keyboard one hundred percent. Not only did he switch some of its functions to the mouse, but he also doesn’t know what some of the keys on it are for...

Much has been written about the history of the keyboard and the emergence of the layout we are used to, it’s time to talk about it in more detail. For example, have you used the Scroll Lock key a long time ago? Have you used it at all? Do you know where it is located? Why does the light come on when you turn it on? No, well, with the lamp it’s even more or less clear - it lights up to make it more interesting, but how to use this button?

It turns out that this key was invented so that when it was turned on, the cursor keys would change their purpose. When the Scroll Lock key is turned off, the cursor keys function as usual, but when turned on they can be used to scroll the screen. Of course, if you turn on Scroll Lock right now, you won’t see any changes, but if you have the Opera browser, then you can use the Scroll Lock key voice commands. Yes, yes, Opera can be controlled by voice. To do this, however, you need to download and install voice libraries (their volume is about 10 megabytes). Download and you will immediately understand that this miracle button is simply irreplaceable.

If you have a laptop, you probably use function key Fn (for example, I turn off the screen of my laptop by pressing Fn and F11) and you will probably be interested to know what in Dell laptops, the same Scroll Lock is used as the Fn key. That is, cunning developers still found its worthy use. We hope that you will find the same worthy use for this key. Why do you need it?
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Launch Microsoft Excel, select a group of cells and click the right arrow (down, up, left). The selection will be removed and another cell will be marked. Now select the group of cells again and press Scroll Lock. Now press the right arrow. As you can see, the selection was not removed, but the page moved in the indicated direction. That is, Scroll Lock allows you to scroll through the document using arrows without removing the selection. Of course, it doesn’t work in all programs, but at least you know what this key was intended for.
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In some DOS programs, when scrolling through long dumps, you had to force the scrolling to be stopped using this key.

To disable scroll lock when enabled, press the Scroll Lock key (usually labeled ScrLk) on your keyboard. If your computer does not have a Scroll Lock key, do one of the following: next steps:

On Windows 10

Start > settings > Special abilities > Keyboard.

To turn it on, click the button On-screen keyboard.

ScrLk.

Advice: To quickly open on-screen keyboard on Windows 10, click Windows button. Start typing Screen keyboard, which will be displayed in the search field. In field search which will appear as a list above the search field, click the search result On-screen keyboard. When the on-screen keyboard appears, press ScrLk.

On Windows 8.1

If your keyboard does not have a Scroll Lock key on your computer, press Start and press CTRL keys+ C to show the Charms bar.

Click the button Change computer settings.

Select Special abilities > Keyboard.

Click the button Screen keyboard slider to enable it.

When the on-screen keyboard appears, press the button ScrLk.

On Windows 7

If there is no keyboard SCROLL keys LOCK, press the button Start > All programs > StandardSpecial abilities > Keyboard.

When the on-screen keyboard appears, press the button slk.

Note: To close the on-screen keyboard, press X in the right top corner on-screen keyboard.

Troubleshooting SCROLL LOCK mode

You can determine that SCROLL LOCK mode is enabled by the inscription Scroll Lock in the Excel status bar.

If SCROLL LOCK appears to be enabled, but you don't see Scroll Lock in Excel's status bar, the status bar may be configured to not display the SCROLL LOCK status. To determine if this is the case, click the Excel status bar right click mice. Find the checkbox to the left of the option Scroll Lock. If it is not installed, then when SCROLL LOCK mode is enabled, Excel will not display Scroll Lock in the status bar. To display it, simply check the box.

A check mark indicates that the status bar will display the SCROLL LOCK mode status.