Have you ever been sent a Microsoft Excel sheet that has lots of complicated stuff on it? You’re reading down through it and trying to figure out what adds up to what, and as you scroll down, you start to forget what data is in what column?
Here’s the thing. You can “freeze” the headings so that when you scroll down, they stay at the top of the sheet. Neat, eh? How to do it? That’s easy.
First, it depends on which version of Microsoft Excel you’re using. Excel 2007 will have the Microsoft Office button, also known as the “pizza” button on the top left of the screen. If you click on it you’ll see “Excel Options” at the bottom of the box that opens. Click it, then click “Resources”, and at the bottom of that list you’ll see “About Microsoft Office Excel 2007″. There you go, you’ve got Excel 2007.
If your version looks different, and if you have a “Help” option on the menu bar, click that and select “About Microsoft Excel”. You’ll be given the version number, in this case it will be 2003 or before.
Ok, now we’ve got the version number, how to freeze those titles.
On Excel 2007, select the row directly below the titles you want to freeze. To do this, click on the number of the row as it appears on the very far left, the ones that start with 1 and go all the way down the page. The row will be highlighted for you. Click the “View” tab across the top and click on the ”Freeze Panes” button. You’ll get a drop-down list. Just click on the first item on the list, which is “Freeze Panes”. Now you can scroll away to your hearts content and everything above the row you selected will stay in place. Just repeat those steps to reverse the freeze. This time “Unfreeze Panes” will appear in the drop down list for you.
If you want to freeze a column so that it stays in place when you scroll over to the right, it works the same way. Select the column on the right of the one(s) you want to freeze and repeat the steps. Note that it will not allow you to do this if you already have a row or rows frozen.
If you want to freeze rows across the top and columns down the side at the same time, then click into the individual cell directly below the row(s) and directly to the right of the column(s). Have a look at the picture.
You can scroll down while keeping your column headings, and scroll right while keeping your row titles.
To do this in Excel 2003 or before, select the row, column or cell in the same way as for 2007, then click on “Window” in the menu bar, and select “Freeze Panes” from the drop down list that appears.
It’s amazing how helpful this can be, especially if you have a very large spreadsheet to work with.
What about you, has this helped you? Do let me know. And don’t forget to let me know if there are other hints or tips you’d like to see here.
Thanks!
Paula.
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