Freeze panes to keep track of where you are in a spreadsheet.

Former Lifewire writer Ted French is a Microsoft Certified Professional who teaches and writes about spreadsheets and spreadsheet programs.

When working with large Excel spreadsheets, the column and row headings located at the top and down the left side of the worksheet disappear if you scroll too far to the right or too far down.

Freezing locks specific columns or rows in place so that no matter where you scroll theyre always visible on the top or side of the sheet.

Freezing the top row of a worksheet is a great way to keep your Excel headings visible at all times.

Follow these three easy steps to get that header to stay in place.

A border appears just below Row 1 to indicate that the area above the line has been frozen.

The data in row 1 remains visible as you scroll down because the entire row is pinned to the top of Excel.

In addition to freezing the first row of a worksheet, you can also freeze the first column just as easily.

The entire column A area is frozen, indicated by the black border between column A and B.

Enter some data into column A, scroll to the right, and youll see the data move with you.

Freeze all the rows above the active cell and all the columns to the left of the active cell.

Select a cell that is below the row that you want frozen and to the right of the column you want frozen.

These are the rows and columns that stay visible when you scroll.

Two black lines appear on the sheet to show which panes are frozen.

The rows above the horizontal line are kept visible while scrolling.

The columns to the left of the vertical line are kept visible while scrolling.

The data in the frames will remain, but the rows and columns that were frozen will return to their original positions.

Control Scroll Excel For Mac Bugs 2017