The Page Up and Page Down keys (sometimes abbreviated as PgUp and PgDn) are two keys commonly found on

computer keyboard A computer keyboard is a built-in or peripheral input device modeled after the typewriter keyboard which uses an arrangement of buttons or Push-button, keys to act as Mechanical keyboard, mechanical levers or Electronic switching system, electro ...

s. The two keys are primarily used to

scroll A scroll (from the Old French ''escroe'' or ''escroue''), also known as a roll, is a roll of papyrus, parchment, or paper containing writing. Structure A scroll is usually partitioned into pages, which are sometimes separate sheets of papyru ...

up or down in documents, but the scrolling distance varies between different applications. In word processors, for instance, they may jump by an emulated physical page or by a screen view that may show only part of one page or many pages at once depending on zoom factor. In cases when the document is shorter than the full screen, and often have no visible effect at all. Operating systems differ as to whether the keys (pressed without modifier) simply move the view – e.g. in Mac OS X – or also the input caret – e.g. in Microsoft Windows. In right-to-left settings, will move either upwards or rightwards (instead of left) and will move down or leftwards (instead of right). The keys have been dubbed and , accordingly. The

arrow keys Arrow keys or cursor movement keys are keys on a computer keyboard that are either programmed or designated to move the cursor (computers), cursor in a specified direction. The term "cursor movement key" is distinct from "arrow key" in that th ...

and the

scroll wheel A scroll wheel is a wheel used for scrolling. The term usually refers to such wheels found on computer mouse, computer mice (where they can also be called a mouse wheel). It is often made of hard plastic with a rubbery surface, centred around a ...

can also be used to scroll a document, although usually by smaller incremental distances. Used together with a

modifier key In computing, a modifier key is a special key (or combination) on a computer keyboard that temporarily modifies the normal action of another key when pressed together. By themselves, modifier keys usually do nothing; that is, pressing any of the , ...

, such as , , or a combination thereof, they may act the same as the Page keys. In most operating systems, if the Page Up or Page Down key is pressed along with the key in editable text, all the text scrolled over will be highlighted. In some applications, the and keys behave differently in

caret navigation In computing, caret navigation (or caret browsing) is a kind of keyboard navigation where a caret (also known as a ‘text cursor’, ‘text insertion cursor’, or ‘text selection cursor’) is used to navigate within a text document. Adopt ...

(toggled with the function key in Windows). For a claimed 30% of people, the paging keys move the text in the opposite direction to what they find natural, and software may contain settings to reverse the operation of these keys to accommodate that. In August 2008, Microsoft received the US

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...

#7,415,666 for the functions of the two keys – Page Up & Page Down.Microsoft patents 'Page Up' and 'Page Down'
29 August 2008, David Meyer, ''ZDNet'', retrieved at 25 January 2017

References

Computer keys {{Compu-hardware-stub

See also

References