Microsoft Excel Tip: Freeze Panes and Print Titles

When working with a lot of data on an Excel worksheet, you can quickly lose track of your column headings and row labels as you move around the worksheet. Fortunately, Excel has several tools that make it easier to view content from different parts of your workbooks. One such tool is the Freeze Panes.

In this post, we’ll walk you through how you can easily work with your Excel sheets by applying Freeze Panes. We will also look at the difference between Freeze Panes and Print Titles.

How to Use Excel Freeze Panes

One of the challenges of working with large worksheets is that as you start moving around the worksheets, you’ll lose track of the column heading and row labels. Fortunately, the Excel Freeze Panes feature can help.

The Freeze Panes feature is an excellent way of keeping the data you need readily available rather than wasting time scrolling through columns and rows of data. Here are tips on how to use it.

How to Freeze Columns and Rows

Before you decide to freeze columns and rows on a worksheet, it is important that you consider the following factors:

You can only freeze the rows at the top and the columns on the left side of your worksheet. You can’t freeze columns and rows in the middle of the worksheet.
The Freeze Panes command isn’t available when you are in a cell editing mode (that is, when you’re entering data or a formula in a cell) or when a worksheet is protected. You can cancel the editing mode by pressing Enter or Esc.

You can choose to freeze only the top row of your worksheet, only the left column of your worksheet, or multiple columns and rows simultaneously. For instance, if you freeze column A and then decide to freeze row 1, column A will no longer be frozen. Suppose you want to freeze both columns and rows; you need to freeze them simultaneously.

How to Freeze the Top Row

To freeze the top row in Excel, go to the View tab and then click Freeze Panes. Click the Freeze Top Row option. Doing this will freeze the very first row on your Excel worksheet so that it remains visible whenever you scroll through the rest of your worksheet. You can determine that the top row has been frozen by the grey line that will appear below it.

How to Freeze Several Rows

Suppose you want to freeze several rows (beginning with row 1), you need to follow these steps:

Select the row that is right below the final row that you want to freeze
Afterward, you should go to the View tab, where you’ll click Freeze Panes.

As a result, you will be able to scroll through your worksheet content while still being able to view the frozen cells.

How to Freeze the First Column

If you want the first column on your worksheet frozen, click on the View tab and then click Freeze Panes. Finally, click on Freeze First Column. This will make the leftmost column on your worksheet visible at all times while you scroll towards the right.

How to Freeze Several Columns

Suppose you want multiple columns frozen, follow these steps:

Select the column that is on the right side of the final column that you want frozen
After doing that, you should click on the View tab and finally click on Freeze Panes.

Unfreezing Columns and Rows in Excel

To unfreeze frozen columns and/or rows, go to the View tab and click Freeze Panes. Finally, click Unfreeze Panes.

Print Titles

Print Titles refers to columns and rows you want repeated when you print a sheet over several pages. To Print Titles, execute the following steps:

On the Page Layout tab, in the Page Setup group, click Print Titles.
A page setup box will appear. To repeat Row 1 at the top of every printed page, select row 1 in the corresponding box, and then click OK (note that you can repeat columns at the left of each printed page in a similar way).
On the File tab, click Print for a print preview.

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Microsoft Excel Tip: Freeze Panes and Print Titles