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Get Scrollbar To Appear When Launching A VBA Userform

By Chris Newman •  Updated: 12/13/15 •  3 min read
Force Scrollbar to Appear In Userform VBA Excel

What This VBA Code Does

For some reason when you have a scrollable textbox, the scrollbar does not initially appear until the user clicks the text box. Once clicked the scrollbar appears and automatically scrolls to the last line in the text box. This does not make for a good user experience and can cause quite a lot of confusion.

To solve this, we can use VBA code to mimic clicking the textbox (also called Setting the Focus) and scrolling back up to the first line of the text in the text box.

Here is how this is done.

Private Sub UserForm_Initialize()
'PURPOSE: Make scrollbar inside textbox appear when userform is loaded
'SOURCE: www.TheSpreadsheetGuru.com/the-code-vault

'Start Userform Centered inside Excel Screen (for dual monitors)
  Me.StartUpPosition = 0
  Me.Left = Application.Left + (0.5 * Application.Width) - (0.5 * Me.Width)
  Me.Top = Application.Top + (0.5 * Application.Height) - (0.5 * Me.Height)

'Mimic clicking the text box
  TextBox1.SetFocus

'Scroll back up to the first line
  TextBox1.CurLine = 0
  
'Set focus to something else in the userform (removes blinking vertical line "|" inside text box)
   Label1.SetFocus

End Sub

Using VBA Code Found On The Internet

Now that you’ve found some VBA code that could potentially solve your Excel automation problem, what do you do with it? If you don’t necessarily want to learn how to code VBA and are just looking for the fastest way to implement this code into your spreadsheet, I wrote an article (with video) that explains how to get the VBA code you’ve found running on your spreadsheet.

Getting Started Automating Excel

Are you new to VBA and not sure where to begin? Check out my quickstart guide to learning VBA. This article won’t overwhelm you with fancy coding jargon, as it provides you with a simplistic and straightforward approach to the basic things I wish I knew when trying to teach myself how to automate tasks in Excel with VBA Macros.

Also, if you haven’t checked out Excel’s latest automation feature called Power Query, I have put together a beginner’s guide for automating with Excel’s Power Query feature as well! This little-known built-in Excel feature allows you to merge and clean data automatically with little to no coding!

How Do I Modify This To Fit My Specific Needs?

Chances are this post did not give you the exact answer you were looking for. We all have different situations and it’s impossible to account for every particular need one might have. That’s why I want to share with you: My Guide to Getting the Solution to your Problems FAST! In this article, I explain the best strategies I have come up with over the years to get quick answers to complex problems in Excel, PowerPoint, VBA, you name it

I highly recommend that you check this guide out before asking me or anyone else in the comments section to solve your specific problem. I can guarantee that 9 times out of 10, one of my strategies will get you the answer(s) you are needing faster than it will take me to get back to you with a possible solution. I try my best to help everyone out, but sometimes I don’t have time to fit everyone’s questions in (there never seem to be quite enough hours in the day!).

I wish you the best of luck and I hope this tutorial gets you heading in the right direction!

Keep Learning

Chris Newman

Chris Newman

Chris is a finance professional and Excel MVP recognized by Microsoft since 2016. With his expertise, he founded TheSpreadsheetGuru blog to help fellow Excel users, where he shares his vast creative solutions & expertise. In addition, he has developed over 7 widely-used Excel Add-ins that have been embraced by individuals and companies worldwide.

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