Freeze Panes in Excel With Examples

Freeze Panes is a useful tool located in View Bar. In larger sheets, we have the data headers in the top rows and first columns. And on scrolling down or to the right, these headers do not appear.

The Excel Freeze Panes tool allows us to freeze the column/row or multiple columns/rows headings so that when we scroll down or move to the right to view the rest of the sheet, the rows/columns are that are frozen remain on the screen. After freezing, below that row and column, a grey line appears to make the partition. 

In the window group (View tab), we can see its variations :

1. Freeze Panes
2. Freeze Top Row
3. Freeze First Column

Let’s discuss them and the other possibilities.

Freeze Top Row:

On clicking Freeze Top Row, the First row gets frozen and on scrolling down, we can still see the top Row throughout the pages. 

Freeze First Column:

On clicking Freeze First Column, the First Column gets frozen and on moving to the right, we can still see the First Column and can match the data values to the headers present in the first column. 

Freezing First Column and Top Row only freezes the one row/column to the screen. To freeze multiple, the Freeze Panes option is used.

Freeze Multiple Rows: 

To freeze the multiple rows, select the cell in the first column(A) below the last row we want to freeze and then click on Freeze Panes. On scrolling down, frozen rows will stay fixed.

Cell A4 is selected so that the 3 rows above it get frozen.

Freeze Multiple Columns:

To freeze the multiple columns, select the cell in the first row(1) right to the last column we want to freeze and then click on Freeze Panes. On moving to the right, frozen columns will stay fixed.

Cell C1 is selected, and after clicking on Freeze Panes, columns A and B get frozen.

Freeze Cells:

We can also Freeze Multiple Rows and Columns together as per requirement. The tool Freeze Panes will do the work for us. To freeze, we have to select the cell whose left columns need to be frozen and whose above rows need to be frozen and then click on Freeze Panes in the View Bar under Window Group. 

Cell C4 is selected to freeze the rows above it and the columns left to it. 

Unfreeze Panes:

Unfreeze Panes is the tool used to unfreeze the formerly frozen row/column and the sheet gets back to normal view.

After freezing, the option Freeze Panes gets changed to Unfreeze Panes.

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