Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

This is very weird but I suddenly find that I can't scroll past the first page of my Writer document. This just started a few minutes ago and I can't think of anything odd I did to make it happen.

While sitting on the first page of my document, which is three pages long, I can use the scrollbar on the right to scroll down, as usual. However, as soon as I get to the point where I can see the first three or four lines on the second page, I find myself back near the top of the first page, even though I am still pushing the scrollbar in the downward direction. The same thing happens if I use the arrow at the bottom end of the scroll track and if I use the double arrow facing downward that is below the single downward facing arrow, i.e. the paging arrow. The Page Down button on my keyboard is simply ignored.

I tried saving and reopening the document and was then able to scroll normally again but as soon as I did an edit in the document, I suddenly lost the ability to scroll down again.

What the heck is going on here and how do I fix it?

I opened another multi-page document and was able to scroll through it normally. I was also able to edit it without breaking my scrolling so the problem appears confined to this one document.

What would cause scrolling to fail within a single Writer document??

Your cursor may be in a Comment (formerly Note) box attached to the first page. Click on the page of the document to reposition the cursor and all should be well.

You nailed it, Rory! I clicked in the document proper and was able to scroll normally again. I had indeed been creating comments throughout the document when I first encountered the problem and I resumed editing comments when I reopened the file, which presumably caused the problem to reassert itself.

It never seriously occurred to me that editing comments would cause problems with scrolling though. I'm still a bit puzzled why that would be the case but I'm quite happy to simply accept the fact and get back to my document.

Thanks for your help!

Glad my guess was right! When cursor is in a Comment/Note, scrolling is held to that page. Cursor has to be on the page, not in a Comment, for full document scrolling.

RhinoCan wrote:You nailed it, Rory! ...

Yep--Good catch!

I knew I had seen this behavior myself but I couldn't remember under what circumstances it happened.