after reading this:
and not getting it to work exactly, I continued on.
xrandr
entered in terminal resulted in:
Screen 0: minimum 8 x 8, current 1280 x 800, maximum 32767 x 32767
LVDS1 connected primary 1280x800+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 331mm x 207mm panning 1280x800+0+0
1280x800 59.94*+
1024x768 60.00
800x600 60.32 56.25
640x480 59.94
640x400 60.00
DVI1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
TV1 unknown connection (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
848x480 59.94 +
640x480 59.94 +
1024x768 59.94
800x600 59.94
VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
VIRTUAL1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
So my laptop screen is LVDS1. Good to know for the following.
See the following page for a functioning pan example using xrandr:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Config/Resolution#Panning_viewport
I tried this command (modified for my particular circumstances) and it produced the expected result - I was able to effortlessly pan a much larger area than my apparent screen area. The second command lets me return to the initial display situation.
xrandr --output LVDS1 --rate 60 --mode 1280x800 --fb 2560x920 --panning 2560x920
xrandr -s 1280x800
I put these commands into .sh files in my scripts directory so that I could use them from the upper panel whenever needed.
(Add to Panel, Custom Application Launcher, select suitable icons, etc.)
pan_up.sh includes
#!/bin/bash
#makes the virtual desktop a little taller
xrandr --output LVDS1 --rate 60 --mode 1280x800 --fb 1280x920 --panning 1280x920
Pan_rest.sh includes
#!/bin/bash
#returns the desktop to ordinary size
xrandr -s 1280x800
And for further reading, enter man xrandr in terminal.