The traditional low-coherence vertical scanning method has low measurement efficiency when measuring the three-dimensional surface topography of steps or groove-like microstructures with a height of tens or hundreds of microns. For this reason, a fast vertical scanning topography measurement method based on spectral distribution characteristics is proposed, and this method includes twice vertical scanning processes. An evaluation function to describe the fringe contrast of a single interferogram is established, the approximate position of the upper and lower surfaces of the test object is located by coarse scanning, and the upper and lower coarse scanning images are connected to calculate the image acquisition areas of the fine scanning that cover the coherent areas on the upper and lower surfaces of the test object. The fine scanning is not performed in other areas, but its displacement is recorded. With the fine scanning interferogram of π/2 scanning phase shift, the three-dimensional surface topography of the test object is restored. The scanning step length of the coarse scanning is calculated based on the low-coherence spectral distribution, and the step length of the fine scanning is one-eighth of the center wavelength. Experiments on the step with a height of 7.805 μm and the groove with a depth of 200.99 μm show that the proposed method reduces the acquisition time by 48.2% and 55.2% respectively, compared with the traditional vertical scanning method.