A method and system for electronically scrolling a document with a data processing apparatus uses an input device, e.g., a mouse, to permit position based scrolling without first accessing a scroll bar or other scrolling functionality element. In a page positional scrolling (PPS) mode useful for scrolling short distances, a displayed document is scrolled one pixel per one pixel of motion of the mouse. In a second mode (document positional scrolling--DPS), the document is scrolled a distance per pixel of mouse movement corresponding to the ratio of the document length (or width) to the page length (or width). In a further embodiment (smoothed document positional scrolling--SDPS), as the mouse is moved away from a starting position the system begins scrolling in PPS, transitions smoothly from PPS to DPS, and then continues to scroll in DPS.