[Sigia-l] Reports w/ Horizontal Scrolls

[Susan Rice]

I'm working on a project where we're providing some reporting online with the option to download to Excel. It's very likely that the data will require the use of a horizontal scroll within the table and depending on the report, the user may or may not need to scroll vertically too. Unfortunately, we can't rely on JavaScript or Web 2.0 for coding the display (e.g., can't do any detects based on amount of data, can't keep the header info in place when scrolling down, etc...). 
 
With that in mind, do you suggest providing an internal vertical scroll which requires that we define a fixed height for the table or should the user use the browser scroll? Here are some considerations:


Using an internal vertical scroll would mean that for reports with few rows of data, the table will display a lot of white space. 

Using the browser scroll would result in no dead space; however, it might be difficult to find information in the top right corner of the report, because the user would have to scroll down to the horizontal scroll, scroll over, then scroll back up and hopefully not lose their place in the table.
We have a solution in mind, but I just wanted to see what you all thought. Thanks in advance for your help.
 
Susan C. RiceMgr. Information Architecture | Staples UsabilityTel. 508-253-1539 | Fax 508.253.7788