How do I… · Excel

How do I freeze the top row in Excel?

Freezing keeps headers visible while the rest of the sheet scrolls. The trick nobody explains is that Excel freezes everything above and to the left of the cell you have selected.

Steps

  1. For just the header row: View → Freeze Panes → Freeze Top Row. No selection needed.
  2. For just the first column: View → Freeze Panes → Freeze First Column.
  3. For both at once, or for more than one row: click the cell below and to the right of everything you want frozen — to freeze two rows and one column, click B3 — then View → Freeze Panes → Freeze Panes.
  4. To undo it: View → Freeze Panes → Unfreeze Panes.

Worth knowing

A thin grey line shows where the freeze is. If it appears in the wrong place, you had the wrong cell selected — unfreeze, reselect, freeze again. Freezing is saved with the workbook, so everyone who opens it gets the same view. In Google Sheets the same thing lives under View → Freeze.

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