Freeze Panes-Freeze The Data You Need

When you have a huge amount of data under a common heading you are unable to see the heading when scrolled down the worksheet. What freeze panes does is it lets you freeze particular rows and columns of your choice so that you can see that frozen portion even when the rest of the datas are being scrolled. It makes your job much easier when you have thousands of data under one heading. Freezing and unfreezing panes changes the view of the data without changing the data itself.

Let’s take a look at how Freeze panes in excel works

Freezing a row-on the view tab in the window group, choose the freeze panes option then freeze the top row option, you will notice a line under the first row it means the row has been frozen, now when you scroll down the first row remains where it is while the rest of the data moves.

Freezing a column-the process is similar to freezing a row but instead of freeze top row option select freeze first column option a similar line will be visible besides the first column which means the first column is frozen and by scrolling to the right on the worksheet you will notice the first column stays where it was

Freezing both rows and columns-you can freeze both rows and columns simultaneously all you have to do is determine which row and column you want to select then select a cell accordingly as everything above and left to that cell will freeze by selecting freeze panes option. Now everything above and left to that cell will stay in place when you scroll and to unfreeze the panes just choosing unfreeze panes from freeze panes option.

What if you want to select more than one row or column or freeze something to the right side?

There is solution to that too first of all you will notice a little bar on top of the vertical scroll bar when you place your mouse there you will see that your mouse pointer has become a two headed arrow now left click the mouse button and drag down underneath the row you want to freeze and go to freeze panes option from the view tab and click it.
similarly there is a small bar on the right side of the horizontal scroll bar, placing your mouse pointer on it will show similar two headed arrow effect now click your mouse and drag it up to the column you want to freeze and click on the freeze panes option to freeze the column.

Things to remember

You cannot freeze or unfreeze panes while you are in cell editing mode or page layout view.

You cannot freeze or unfreeze if the worksheet is protected.

Don’t select the A1cell as it is not possible to select rows or columns above the A1 cell. Excel will freeze the panes near the center of the work space instead.