Tip #13 - Freezing Panes in Excel

100 Computer Tips in 100 Days

Tip #13 - Freezing Panes in Excel

When working with an Excel list you often need to use many columns and rows, more than can fit on the height or width of the screen. As a result you have to scroll left and right as well as up and down to view your data. The problem with this is that important information is often in the first column or two and in the first row. When you scroll this information is no longer visible. That’s where Freezing Panes is very useful.

In this example we want to freeze the panes in Excel
so that as we scroll to the right to fill in additional
columns of information we will still be able to view
columns A and B.

For example, in the screen shot on the right, there is name information in the first two columns that you might want to freeze in place. You also want to freeze the column headings in row 1 so you can see them when you scroll down the sheet. To do this you should click on cell C2. This step of selecting cell C2 (in this example) is important because the rows above and the columns to the left the active cell will be frozen.

From the View tab in the windows group choose Freeze Panes and then click on Freeze Panes again. As you will see, other choices are Freeze Top Row or Freeze First Column, useful if that is what you want to do. Now take a test drive. Use the scroll bars to scroll up and down as well as left and right. Isn’t it a miracle!

It always astonishes me to see how many experienced Excel users are struggling because they don’t know the secret of freezing panes.

Here’s a bonus tip for PC users. Did you know that the wheel on your mouse is also a button? It’s particularly helpful in Excel where you need to scroll left and right. Click the mouse button. You’ll see the circle pictured here. Now all you have to do is move your mouse away from this circle, to the left, right, above or below and the screen will scroll. The further you move from the circle, the faster you will scroll so be careful! This takes a little getting used to but it’s easier than using the left/right scroll bar.

Happy Computing! See you tomorrow. - Diane