When youre working with a big list, its often handy to freeze headers or columns so that theyre always visible as you scroll through the data.

Lets take a look.

Here we have a large table with a header row at the top.

Notice that as we scroll down through the data, the headers scroll off the screen.

And, if we scroll to the right, the company name is no longer visible.

This makes it hard to understand the worksheet, because we arent able to see the columns and headers that give the data meaning.

These options are visible on the view tab, in the Freeze Panes menu.

If you want to freeze only the top row of a list in a worksheet, choose Freeze Top Row from the menu.

The top row in the visible portion of the worksheet will then be locked and remain visible as you scroll down through the data.

To unfreeze the top row, choose Unfreeze Panes from the same menu.

The first column in the visible portion of the worksheet will now be locked and will remain visible as you scroll.

To unfreeze the first column, choose Unfreeze Panes from the menu.

To freeze both rows and columns, select the upper left cell in the data you dont want to freeze.

Now the rows above this cell, and the columns to the left of this cell will be frozen, and remain visible as you scroll.

The Freeze Panes option is especially useful when your worksheet contains more than just your data, as in this example.

Just select the first cell in the data you dont want to freeze, and choose Freeze Panes.

If you work with spreadsheets with large size, and want the top row or leftmost column ( which usually contains a description, number, date, name, etc ) are always visible (because of limited display screen of computer ), we can use the Freeze Panes tool.

Highlight the cell just below the second row and second column, (assuming the first row and first column to be locked ) 3.

Click Freeze Panes, the row and first column will lock, to see the result try moving to the far down or right side cell.

Excel For Mac Freeze Panes