Many Excel worksheets (such as budgets) are set up with row and column headings. As you scroll through such worksheets, you can easily get lost after the row and column headings scroll out of view. Excel provides a handy solution to alleviate this problem: freezing rows and/or columns.

To freeze entire rows or columns, follow these steps:

1. Move the cell pointer to the cell below the row that you want to freeze and to the right of the column that you want to freeze. Use the following steps to freeze various portions of the worksheet:

To freeze row 1 and column A, move the cell pointer to cell B2.

To freeze rows only, move the cell pointer below the rows that you want to freeze in column A.

To freeze columns only, move the cell pointer to the right of the columns that you want to freeze in row 1.

2. Choose Window, Freeze Panes from the menu bar.

Excel inserts dark lines to indicate the frozen rows and columns. These frozen rows and columns remain visible as you scroll throughout the worksheet.

Remember: Excel freezes all rows above the row you select and all the columns to the left of the column you select. Therefore, to freeze a single row and/or column, you must put your row headings in row 1 and your column heading in column A.

To unfreeze the frozen rows or columns, choose Window, Unfreeze Panes from the menu bar.