Ever been using Microsoft Excel on the Mac and found that when you use the arrow keys on the keyboard to move from one cell to the next, instead the whole worksheet scrolls?

This is actually a feature of Microsoft Excel carried over from the Windows version on which you press the Scroll lock key to enable or disable. Older Macintosh computers had the F14 key mapped to the Scroll lock key of PC keyboard, so it was quite easy to enable or disable. However newer Macintoshes no longer have a F14 key.

This makes disabling this feature tricky to say the least.

In the past I have attached an older Mac keyboard to my 2010 Macbook Pro and pressed the F14 key. However for those of you who do not have ready access to such legacy keyboards, you can use a simple applescript application that I have written called Excel Scroll Lock.

What it does is "send" a shift-F14 key press to Microsoft Excel as if you pressed the Scroll lock key, thus toggling on or off this function within Excel.

Microsoft Excel for OSX

A full explanation of it's purpose is available on the author's blog - damos.world.

To use, simply download the application bundle, unzip, and drag the application into your Applications folder. Then run it. You can alternatively download a disk image version of the application, and run without installing into your Applications folder.

Right click the Excel Scroll Lock application, and then choose Open to start it.

Excel Scroll Lock is licenced under the terms of the GPLv2.

Contributions are welcome - fork and push away. Contact me (Damien Clark) for further information.