by Tony Rushin
I’m continuing on my quest to take a fresh look at Excel – since I’ve been using it for 30+ years – in order to learn new tricks and/or break old habits. I recently took a fresh look at Freezing Panes – when it isn’t the top row or first column.
First of all, here’s where you find the Freeze Panes option:
If you’ve got a wide or long spreadsheet and you’ve done, or inherited, some fancy formatting then the Freeze Top Row or Freeze First Column options may not work for you. For instance, the spreadsheet I was working with the other day was formatted with the first 2 rows merged.
It was a long spreadsheet so I wanted to freeze the headings in the top 2 rows. You accomplish this by placing your cursor in the cell underneath – and/or to the right of – the information you want to freeze. For instance, if you simply want to freeze the top 2 rows, place the cursor in the first column of row 3 like this:
and select Freeze Panes. Now, as you scroll down, the top 2 rows are frozen:
If you want to also freeze the first 2 columns, you place your cursor in the third column of row 3 – to the right of the columns you want to freeze and underneath the rows, you want to freeze – like this:
and select Freeze Panes. Now, as you scroll down and over the top 2 rows – along with the first 2 columns – are frozen:
