“Freezing” Rows and Columns in Excel
When you are editing a large spreadsheet, you may want to lock the row or column headings into place so that they don’t scroll when you scroll the other cells in the worksheet. Excel calls this freezing panes. You can freeze any number of rows at the top of the screen or any number of columns on the left side of the screen, or both.
To keep row and/or column headings visible as you scroll:
- To freeze one or more rows, select the row below the row you want to freeze.
- Select Window | Freeze Panes.
To freeze one or more columns, select the column to the right of the column you want to freeze.
To freeze both rows and columns, click the cell below and to the right of the cells you want to freeze.
To remove “Freeze Panes” so that the worksheet scrolls normally:
- Select Window | Unfreeze Panes.
When panes are frozen, you typically move in the bottom or lower right pane. However, you can click into any frozen pane and scroll around it.