MVP #19: How to hide rows and columns in Excel, and to unhide them too

In this post, I'll show you how to hide and unhide rows and columns in Excel.

Why is this useful?
Every Excel user someday will get a worksheet that has some rows or columns hidden, and just wait till you get one without being told that there are hidden rows or columns in it. Using one of my friends' favorite quote - You will sweat like Christmas goat!

A working knowledge of how to hide and unhide rows and columns with save you a lot of hassle someday. It will help you troubleshoot better when formulas don't work as expected (especially lookup formulas) and when copy and paste goes bizarre.

Well, so much for the preamble, now to the main content.


As usual, I have made a sample data for illustration. Today's sample data is an interesting one.

All what you see up there is a result of the formula below -

="Row"&ROW(A1)&" Column"&COLUMN(A1) 
for Cell A1 and drag across other cells to populate them.

Now we are going to hide Columns C and D. Select Columns C and D. Rightclick and select hide.

Done.

Here's the result. Columns C and D are no longer in view!

Let's do for rows too.

We are going to hide rows 6 to 12. So, select them. Rightclick and hide.

Here's the result.

As you can see above, Columns C and D are not visible. Same with Rows 6 to 12.

Now let's unhide them.

To unhide rows or columns, you have to select the row/column before the hidden ones and the row/column after the hidden ones. 

In our case, to unhide Column C and D, we'll have to select Columns B and E. Then rightclick and unhide.

Here's the result.

Columns C and D are now visible

We'll do for the rows by selecting Rows 5 and 13. Rightclick and unhide.

Here's the result.

Congratulations!
You've just learned a simple task that can ease your Excel life immeasurably.