How to Use the Freeze Pane Functionality of MS Excel 2007

Learn how to use the Freeze Pane functionality in Microsoft Excel 2007

Now that we are here, let us go ahead and click on the get around in your data tab. You are in the new spreadsheet now, a new sheet called Getting Around in your Data. The first thing we are going to talk about here is the Freeze Panes Functionality. The Freeze Panes Functionality allows you to keep visual contact with certain portion of your spreadsheet as you move around. Where this comes in handy is when you have to scroll down through your data set and as you go down, you will notice that your column headers disappear, they are gone. The problem is as you look at your data here, you are not quite sure which field goes with what label. So, I do not know which one of these numbers are units. I do not know which one of these numbers are revenues. Obviously, you can tell from the dollar sign here but if you have lots of data points or lots of columns that have similar looking functionalities or numbers, it would be difficult to tell. In order to resolve this problem, I will employ the Freeze Panes Functionality. Now to get there, I am going to click on the View Tab and then I will find the Freeze Panes command button. If you click on the command button, you will see three options Freeze Panes, Freeze Top Row and Freeze First Column. Let us go through each one of this. Fist, let us talk about Freeze Panes. The Freeze Panes selection freezes all columns that the left of the active cell and all rows above the active cell. Let us see an example of that. I am going to unselect this and go back to my spreadsheet and then I will move up to cell A1. I can do that again, remember by typing A1 here on the name box and hitting Enter, it moves me up to A1. Now, what I want to do here is freeze the columns that show region and market. Also, I want to freeze the fist row. So, what I can do here is place my cursor right at the inner section of the two columns that I want to freeze and row that I want to freeze, click that. Now, remember the Freeze Panes selection freezes the columns to the left of the active cell and the rows to the top of the active cell. So ideally, row one should be frozen and columns A and B should be frozen. I will go up to the Freeze Panes command and select Freeze Panes. Okay, that looks like a lot has happened. But, if I scroll down, you will notice that the header row is locked. Also, if I scroll right, you will notice that columns A and B are frozen and this really comes in handy when you have spreadsheet so with lots and lots of columns where you have to scroll right but still see some of the first few columns in the spreadsheet. So, to remove the Freeze Panes, I will simply return to the Freeze Panes command and select the Freeze Panes selection and you will notice it is no longer Freeze Panes. Now, it says Unfreeze Panes. So, if I select that, your spreadsheet returns to a normal state. The other selections in the Freeze Panes command are Freeze Top Row and Freeze First Column. With these selections, you do not necessarily have to have your cursor place in any cell to activate it. All you will do is simply select Freeze Top Row in order to freeze the top row. The top row is frozen and you can test this out by scrolling down. Again, to return your spreadsheet to a normal state, simply select the Freeze Panes command and select Unfreeze Panes. And finally, the last selection here, Freeze First Column, clicking that will keep the first column visible no matter how far you scroll right. Again, let us test it out, and the first column is frozen.