Dumb Excel question

January 23, 2004 6:56 PM

Dumb Excel question: How do you add rows of cells at the top of a sheet that do not scroll? We've tried Googling, we've tried the Excel help, we've tried poking around at every function that looks obvious, and a few that didn't...
posted by adamgreenfield to Computers & Internet (9 answers total)

If you mean rows that stay put when you scroll down the page, highlight the row (the entire row, not just the width of your worksheet) beneath the rows you want to lock in place, click on "Window" and "Freeze Panes." A solid line will appear beneath the frozen rows. That should do the trick.
posted by boomchicka at 7:02 PM on January 23, 2004

Response by poster: THANK YOU! AskMeFi scores again!!!
posted by adamgreenfield at 7:14 PM on January 23, 2004

You can also choose Window/Split, and then move both the horizontal and vertical split lines, and then freeze them. That allows both frozen rows and columns, if you want.
posted by realityblurred at 9:40 PM on January 23, 2004

You can freeze rows and columns with 'freeze panes' too. It's either highlight a cell and everything to the left and up is frozen, or something one cell off of it.

For the record, adamgreenfield, this is something that the excel help system is really rilly bad at -- it assumes you know that you want to "freeze panes." More than once, I've forgotten what to call it to ask the help system how to do it and ended up on fairly lengthy googlequests.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 11:10 PM on January 23, 2004

Response by poster: That's precisely whut people like me get paid to do: remind the engineers that the user may well have no flippin' idea what the system thinks the desired task is called.

If I wanted to add "nonscrolling rows," how on Earth am I supposed to know that I'm looking for "freeze panes," right?

Not that I'd work for Microsoft for any amount of money, but they really need to hire someone good to square them away usercentricity-wise.

My thanks to all of you for your help.
posted by adamgreenfield at 5:22 PM on January 24, 2004

This thread is probably dead, and adamgreenfield may not check it again, but I'll pipe up anyway. There's yet another, somewhat more intuitive way to do this. Above the vertical scroll bar and to the right of the horizontal scroll bar are some little handles you can grab to create these "panes." I made a crude graphic pointing them out here.
posted by zsazsa at 7:41 PM on January 24, 2004

Freeze panes are the quickest way to impress others with your Excel skills. Of course the ultimate wizardry is knowing all the options available simply by a right-click.
posted by ao4047 at 11:25 PM on January 24, 2004

The thread not be dead! Thanks zsazsa, I needed to do this today and had no idea those thingies were there.
posted by Wet Spot at 6:27 AM on February 10, 2004

Still not dead....I used boomachicka's trick today.

zsazsa's method inserts a copy of the frozen row or column into the scrollable rows.....which might be useful for some sheets.

Thanks AskMeFi!
posted by mbd1mbd1 at 9:03 AM on February 23, 2004