In today’s post, we would be taking a look at how to freeze rows and columns in excel. If you are new to excel, you might ask why you need to know the topic for today. Well, just imagine that you were given a budget to prepare that requires a whole bunch of information to be imputed from the first (1st) row till the thousandth (1000th) row but the first row is where the headers for each column is.
Then imagine you are presenting this file at a Management meeting, it would be very inconveniencing and a serious time waster to be scrolling up and down, left to right to ascertain what the header for a cell you are trying to analyze is. Freezing panes would help you see everything in one view because the headers would be fixed regardless of how you scroll and where you scroll to.
Freeze Top Row
There is a default option in excel to freeze the top row, which is literally freezing row 1 of your excel worksheet. To do this, follow these simple steps:
Step 1: Navigate to the view tab in the window group and click on freeze panes
Step 2: Click on freeze top row from the drop down
Step 3: You’re done, scroll down and you should still see the first row of the worksheet at the top. Excel adds a grey horizontal line just below the first row to indicate that the first row is frozen
Freeze First Column
Freezing top column has the same procedures with freezing the top row. This action keeps the first column (Column A) frozen which enables you scroll to the right whilst keeping column A visible. To freeze the first column, follow these steps:
Step 1: Navigate to the view tab in the window group and click on freeze panes
Step 2: Click on freeze first column from the drop down
Step 3: You’re done, scroll to the extreme right and you should still see the column A showing. There would also be a vertical line just after column A to indicate that column A is frozen.
Unfreeze Panes
Of course, after your presentation, you might want to reset to a worksheet without frozen panes. It’s very easy to unfreeze panes if you follow these steps
Step 1: Navigate to the view tab in the window group and click the freeze panes drop down
Step 2: Click on Unfreeze panes from the dropdown
Freeze Rows
The freeze top row may be inadequate because your heading might span across 4 to 5 rows. In that case, you need to specify the rows to freeze. How do you do this you might ask? Simple, just follow these steps:
Step 1: Let’s assume we want to freeze rows from row 10 and below (i.e rows 1 – 10) because we need to show the dates and whether or not data is historical or forecast according to the model. The first step would be to select row 11
Step 2: Navigate to the view tab in the window group and select freeze panes
Step 3: Congrats, You’re done. You should see a grey horizontal line just after row 10 indicating that the rows above are frozen
Freeze Columns
The freeze column in this section refers to freezing an entire column. Like freezing rows, this is also very easy. The starting point is selecting the column. Let’s see the steps in details:
Step 1: Let’s imagine that in our previous example, we need to always have a view of columns before column C, all you need to do is select Column C
Step 2: Navigate to the view tab in the window group and select freeze panes
Step 3: You’re done, you should be able to move to the right of your worksheet with columns A and B still in view. Excel would also insert a vertical line just after column B to indicate that the columns A and B are frozen
Freeze Cells
Excel gives you the ability to specify the portion of your worksheet you always want to keep in view. This can come in handy because you may need to anchor the intersection of a particular row and column while presenting and the previous options allow such flexibility. To achieve this, we have to determine the particular cell in the worksheet with a view of the required intersection between row and column that we need to freeze.
Let’s Illustrate
The above is a snapshot of a cashflow statement, imagine that you are in a meeting with the CFO and he asks you to present the report to him. Because the worksheet is a few hundred lines down and a few columns to the right, it might be a serious time waster scrolling back and forth during your presentation. What you need to do is to check the key portion of the worksheet that is required to be in view at all times.
In this scenario, we would want to keep rows 1 to 12 frozen because they apply to everything below and for the columns, we would want to keep column A to C frozen because column C contains the cashflow line items.
How do we now freeze the worksheet in line with the above? Simple, just go to row 13 (one row after the last row we stated in the paragraph above) and column D (one column after the column we stated). In essence, locate and select cell D13 and go through the freeze plane process.
Step 2: Select the cell just after the column and after the row you want to be frozen (in this case, cell D13)
Step 3: Navigate to the view tab in the window group and click on freeze panes
Step 4: Click on the first option in the dropdown which is freeze panes
Step 5: You’re done, you should be able to scroll from left to right and up to down with rows 1 – 12 and columns A – C frozen
Quick Access Freeze Button
The freeze panes button can be added to your excel’s quick access toolbar to save you time. In this post, we would examine how to add the freeze plane button to your quick access toolbar.
Step 1: Click on your quick access toolbar, a down arrow key usually located above or below the ribbon
Step 2: Click on more command
Step 3: Under choose command from, select “Commands Not in the Ribbon” from the dropdown
Step 4: Select freeze pane and click the add button
Step 5: Click on OK and you’re done.
Step 6: To freeze Column A to C for example, just highlight column D and click on the new freeze panes button as seen below
Step 7: Scroll to the right and you should still see Columns A to C regardless of how far you scroll. Excel adds a vertical line just after column C to indicate that columns A to C are frozen. Note: To unfreeze with the button, just go through the same process. In our example, we would highlight column D again and re-click the button to unfreeze the columns
Using Keyboard Shortcuts
For someone going through multiple worksheets and looking to save some time, knowing the keyboard shortcuts for freezing panes could come in very handy
Freezing Top Row (Keyboard Shortcut)
To freeze the first row in your excel worksheet, simply use the keyboard combination below
Alt + W + F + R
Freezing First Column
To freeze the first column of your excel worksheet (Column A), use the keyword combination below
Alt + W + F + C
Freezing Cells
To freeze cells as discussed above, identify the particular cell that satisfies the row and column intersection you desire to always keep in view, and then type the following combination to freeze panes:
Alt + W + F + F
