How To Freeze Panes To Lock Rows Or Columns

Feb 03, 2020 • edited Feb 04, 2020

How To Freeze Panes To Lock Rows Or Columns

If you have a large table of data in Excel, it can be useful to freeze rows or columns. This way you can keep rows or columns visible while scrolling through the rest of the worksheet.

To keep an area of a worksheet visible while you scroll to another area of the worksheet, go to the View tab, where you can Freeze Panes to lock specific rows and columns in place, or you can Split panes to create separate windows of the same worksheet.

Learn how to use the Freeze Panes feature in Excel to freeze rows or columns in Excel so that no matter where you go in a spreadsheet certain data remains visible. This is a very useful (and easy once you've learned it) feature in Excel.


Freeze Top Row

To freeze the top row, execute the following steps.

1. On the View tab, in the Window group, click Freeze Panes.

2. Click Freeze Top Row.

3. Scroll down to the rest of the worksheet.

Result. Excel automatically adds a dark grey horizontal line to indicate that the top row is frozen.

Note: to keep the first column visible while scrolling through the right of the worksheet, click Freeze First Column.

Unfreeze Panes

To unlock all rows and columns, execute the following steps.

1. On the View tab, in the Window group, click Freeze Panes.

2. Click Unfreeze Panes.

Freeze Panes

To freeze panes, execute the following steps.

1. Select cell C3.

2. On the View tab, in the Window group, click Freeze Panes.

3. Click Freeze Panes.

Result. The region above row 3 and to the left of column C is frozen.

4. Unfreeze Panes.

To freeze rows, execute the following steps.

5. Select row 3.

6. On the View tab, in the Window group, click Freeze Panes.

7. Click Freeze Panes.

Result. All rows above row 3 are frozen.

Note: to keep columns visible while scrolling to the right of the worksheet, select a column and Freeze panes.

#How To#Tutorial#Columns#Rows

How To group worksheets in Excel if you want to edit multiple worksheets

How to split worksheet in Excel