I was innocently using Word one day when I discovered that my horizontal scroll bar had disappeared. This was annoying, because I had a document open at the time at the side of another document, and wanted to navigate around it. Where had my scroll bar gone? This is how I got it back …
How do I display my horizontal scroll bar?
You do this in Word Options.
In Word 2007, click the Home button at the top left, and choose Word Options from the box that opens:
In Word 2010 and 2013 click on File at the top left and then Options
Once you are in Word Options, go to Advanced options, then Display:
Make sure that you tick Show horizontal scroll bar, and there you are:
Please note, these hints work with versions of Microsoft Word currently in use – Word 2007, Word 2010 and Word 2013 all for PC. Mac compatible versions of Word should have similar options. Always save a copy of your document before manipulating it. I bear no responsibility for any pickles you might get yourself into!
This is part of my series on how to avoid time-consuming “short cuts” and use Word in the right way to maximise your time and improve the look of your documents. Find all the short cuts here …
Related posts on this blog:
How do I display the rulers in Word?
How do I hide the taskbars in Word?
LibroEditing proofreading, editing, transcription, localisation 
The Story Reading Ape
December 3, 2014 at 12:43 pm
Reblogged this on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog….. An Author Promotions Enterprise! and commented:
AUTHORS / WRITERS / BLOGGERS – in case this happens to you 😀
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relationspdbeverly
December 3, 2014 at 12:58 pm
I hate when my hand touches some key by accident and I can’t figure out how to restore my screen to the way it was when Undo doesn’t work. Thanks for the tip, Katherine.
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Liz Dexter
December 3, 2014 at 3:28 pm
I’m glad I could help – I’m not sure how I turned it off in the first place myself!
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Laura
December 3, 2014 at 4:22 pm
A handy tip. I haven’t lost my scroll bar on this version of Word, but it’s only a matter of time. Thanks for the tip!
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Liz Dexter
December 4, 2014 at 8:12 am
Yes, indeed, something that can happen at any time!
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theowllady
December 6, 2014 at 7:09 pm
Reblogged this on theowlladyblog.
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Barbara
June 20, 2015 at 11:55 am
Hi, I have Word 8 and need to use documents for when I play keyboard. I therefore need to be able to scroll up and down the document while playing. Is there a way to get the scroll bar to be visible at all times – it keeps disappearing and then I have to find it which throws my music all over the place.
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Liz Dexter
June 20, 2015 at 12:04 pm
Hello Barbara, do you mean Windows 8 and if so are you using a touch screen? If so, that is outside what I have experience on and know about I’m afraid, but if it’s a different problem, I can try to help you!
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Karen Hall Case
July 25, 2015 at 2:19 pm
I did exactly what your directions said, for Word 2013, and my scroll bar is STILL NOT showing! I think they did an update . . . man oh man, how very frustrating . . . is there an update to the instructions?
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Liz Dexter
July 25, 2015 at 5:36 pm
Hi Karen, I’ve just checked (and I have the updates subscription so have the latest version of Word 2013) and the procedure is still exactly the same thing. Do try again and make sure you click OK and Save where you see them.
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Zeca
November 26, 2015 at 3:48 pm
Perfect! Thank-you – this is just the solution I was looking for. Don’t know why it was disabled in the first place … (btw, I’m on Word 2016 – exact same steps as the 2013 version).
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Liz Dexter
November 26, 2015 at 3:57 pm
Oh, that’s good to know, as I haven’t got to grips with 2016 yet (I need to blog my first interactions with it, so saving that up).
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Spazz
July 13, 2018 at 12:35 am
Thanks for the post!! I finally searched this on Duckduckgo today after years of wondering why M$ removed the scrollbar, and managed to restore it in Word ’16
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Liz Dexter
July 16, 2018 at 8:02 am
Glad it helped and it’s also good to know I appear in the alternative search engines’ results!
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