If you're printing all your Word documents rather than reading them on screen, you're wasting paper. But pressing <Page Down> or clicking the scrollbar repeatedly to review a document is a pain.

If you have one of Microsoft's slick IntelliMouse devices, you can scroll by moving the thumbwheel. But even if your mouse is only ordinary, an undocumented command in Word 97 can automatically scroll a document for you, letting you adjust the speed to suit your needs. Here's how to take advantage of this cool feature.

1. With the document loaded in Word, select ToolsûMacroûMacros from the menu.

2. In the Macros dialogue box, first select Word Commands from the Macros in list, then choose the AutoScroll option from the Macro name list, and finally click Run.

3. To control scrolling speed and direction, position the hourglass pointer over the vertical scrollbar. Move it to the top half of the scrollbar to scroll up, or to the bottom half to scroll down. The further the pointer sits above or below the middle of the scrollbar, the faster the scrolling will occur. To stop scrolling temporarily, position the pointer over the middle of the scrollbar. To turn off AutoScroll, you need only click the left mouse button.

Caption: Exploit the hidden autoscrolling feature in Word 97 by running a built-in macro

If you use this handy feature often, you may want to place the command on a toolbar for convenience. Here's what to do. Select ToolsûCustomize, click the Commands tab, select All Commands in the left-hand box and AutoScroll in the right-hand box, and then drag and drop the command onto a toolbar.

AutoScroll even lets you turn Word 97 into a teleprompter. With a loaded document, select ViewûFull Screen. Press <Alt>-T to display the Tools menu; then follow Steps 1 and 2 above. The AutoScroll bar will appear to the right of the clean document screen, enabling you to control scrolling as described above.