Scrolling Text in an Edit Control

To implement scrolling in an edit control, you can use the automatic scrolling styles, or you can explicitly add scroll bars to the edit control. To add a horizontal scroll bar, use the style WS_HSCROLL; to add a vertical scroll bar, use the style WS_VSCROLL. An edit control with scroll bars processes its own scroll bar messages.

Windows provides three messages that you can send to an edit control with scroll bars. The EM_LINESCROLL message can scroll a multiline edit control both vertically and horizontally. The lParam parameter specifies the number of lines to scroll vertically starting from the current line and the wParam parameter specifies the number of characters to scroll horizontally, starting from the current character. The edit control does not acknowledge messages to scroll horizontally if it has the ES_CENTER or ES_RIGHT style. This message applies to multiline edit controls only.

The EM_SCROLL message scrolls a multiline edit control vertically, which is the same effect as sending a WM_VSCROLL message. The wParam parameter specifies the scrolling action. The EM_SCROLL message applies to multiline edit controls only.