When working with a program from Microsoft Office Excel, sometimes you need to hide some columns or rows. The reason for this may be an improvement in the readability of the document or just the desire to hide some calculations or data. In this regard, users of the software tool the question arises: "How to hide columns in Excel and how to return their visibility back?".
Ways to hide columns
To increase the convenience of working in Excel, the program contains functions that allow you to hide a certain range of cells. It does not matter if any information is stored in them or if they are empty. In order to achieve concealment of one or several columns, it is necessary to perform one of the following four action algorithms.
- Having selected the cells of the columns that you want to hide, move the mouse cursor over the selected range - the column headings will turn darker, and right-click. In the context menu that opens, select the "Hide" command.
- Having selected all the necessary columns, press the "Menu" button on the keyboard, which will lead to a similar expansion of the context menu, and then also select the "Hide" command.
- Having selected one or several cells in the selected columns, proceed with the following commands. In the quick access panel, select the "Home" item, then find the "Cells" toolbar, in which click on the "Format" icon. In the drop-down list, find the heading "Visibility", which contains the item "Hide or show", where to select the command "Hide lines".
- To achieve the fastest result, Excel has a set of hot keys that can be used to hide columns by pressing two buttons on the keyboard. After selecting the cells of the columns that you want to hide, you need to press the key combination: "Ctrl" + "0".
As you can see, if necessary, to understand how to hide columns in Excel, to learn this is not difficult.
Return visibility to columns
After hiding columns, the question often arises of how to open hidden columns in Excel. Returning the hidden cells is very easy - by selecting a range of cells containing two columns between which there are hidden ones, perform the same actions as when hiding them, selecting the "Display columns" command at the end point. In the case of using hot keys, just press the combination: "Ctrl" + "Shift" + "0".
What else can you hide?
In addition to the columns, Excel offers the user to hide also the rows, as well as the entire sheets. In order to hide or show rows, you must act in the same way as hide and show hidden columns in Excel. The only difference is the selection at the end of the command "Hide lines" and "Show lines", and a slightly modified key combination: "Ctrl" + "9" to hide and "Ctrl" + "Shift" + "9" to display the lines.
When working with sheets, the process looks a bit different in comparison with how to hide columns in Excel. You can hide or show the sheet using the "Format" tab, choosing the "Hide sheet" command from the "Hide or show" menu, while being on the sheet needed to hide it. To return visibility, it is enough to do a similar procedure by selecting "Display sheet", selecting the necessary sheets in the window that opens. You can also do this by right-clicking on the panel containing the list of sheets, where to select the hide or display item.
The specifics of hidden cells
By understanding how to hide rows and how to hide columns in Excel, you can greatly ease your work. The advantage of hidden cells is their lack of printing - thus, it is possible to exclude data that are redundant from paper output, without editing the document itself. Another advantage is the increased readability of data - in this case, by hiding unnecessary columns, you can place significant data next to each other.