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Freeze or lock rows and columns in an Excel worksheet. When you are working with a large spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel, it's easy to find yourself scrolling down or across and losing track of where you are. This lesson explains how to freeze rows and columns (officially known as "Freeze Panes") in Excel 2010 for Windows and Excel 2011 for Mac. Why you might need to freeze rows or columns in your spreadsheet
How to freeze rows and columns
How to unfreeze panes in ExcelUnfreezing panes is, fortunately, fairly simple:
. Want to learn more? Try these lessons:. . Our Comment Policy.We welcome your comments and questions about this lesson. We don't welcome spam. Our readers get a lot of value out of the comments and answers on our lessons and spam hurts that experience. Our spam filter is pretty good at stopping bots from posting spam, and our admins are quick to delete spam that does get through. We know that bots don't read messages like this, but there are people out there who manually post spam. I repeat - we delete all spam, and if we see repeated posts from a given IP address, we'll block the IP address. So don't waste your time, or ours. One other point to note - if you post a link in your comment, it will automatically be deleted. Add a comment to this lesson . Comments on this lessonWe are PC users, but sometimes working with data on the MAC is annoying as the commands are different. We looked all around on the web, but this was the easiest way to fix the header / top row issue. Freeze Frames on the MAC is located
on the right hand corner and sometimes may be a little small but the icon is exactly the same as pictured above. Thanks FiveMinuteLessons, as you just made the life of one small business much easier. I use 'Excel for Mac 2011'. I understand the use of freezing panes. How do I sort a column AND still retain the #1 heading 'row' intact at the top and not be included in the sort? NB: I need to globally select the WHOLE column - as I have hundreds and hundreds of rows and I don't want to have to selectively select the
data in the column ie by leaving out the heading. I am unable to get the above solutions working in Excel for Mac. Solution will be greatly appreciated.
Hi LR I know your pain ... I have an Excel spreadsheet that does this to me as well.
Not sure if it's a Mac thing, but it's an old Excel for Windows spreadsheet that I transferred to the Mac. Oddly, I don't have that problem if I create a new table in the Mac version. Three ways to do what you want: I
hope that helps! David Hello David A few other tips for other people: Thanks again
Problem solved + a few other tips for other peopleHello David A few other tips for other people: Thanks again
Freezing top row only works in "Normal" view-at least on Mac.I did not see it mentioned in the lesson and was frustrated when the freeze did not work but I was working in "Page Layout" view and when I switched to "Normal" view it worked just fine. If you freeze the header row in "Normal" view and then try to switch to "Page Layout" view a warning pops up saying that you will lose the freeze.
Works for Excel Mac 2011Hi, thanks a lot for the detailed steps!
Just what I needed thanksI know how disheartening it is when someone reads something useful on a website or blog and then just leaves. So I thought I would take a quick moment and leave a comment letting you know that this is just what I needed to help me with my Excel spreadsheet. Thanks so much for taking the time to post this and share with the internet!
Very UsefulMany Thanks! I've looked for this solution a lot of time! Thanks for your helpful article/lesson. Massimo
. . . . How do you freeze columns and rows in numbers Mac?Apple Numbers. With a spreadsheet open, select Table from the menu bar.. Select Header Rows from the drop-down menu and then the number of header rows you want to freeze or unfreeze.. Select Header Columns from the drop-down menu and then the number of header columns you want to freeze or unfreeze.. Why can't I freeze panes in Excel?To enable the Freeze Panes option again, you need to unprotect your Excel workbook: Tap to the Review tab from the Excel ribbon. Behind the protect workbook, the presence of colored background is an indication that the protection is active. Tap to the unprotect workbook.
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