Freezing a row locks that row – and all rows above it – on your screen when you scroll vertically.
For large worksheets, you may wish to visually freeze a row—to lock it into place so that it stays on your screen even as you scroll. Freezing a row locks that row, and all rows above it, on your screen when you scroll vertically (up and down). Often worksheets with table header rows are frozen at the table header row so that the header information stays on the screen.
Freeze a row or rows to keep key information visible, like a summary table in your header or overall project details.
How to Freeze and Unfreeze a Row
You can access freeze options from the workbook menu. Open the document menu and navigate to View > Freeze to open a submenu from which you can freeze "No rows," "1 row," "2 rows," or "Up to current (selected) row".
How to Access the Document Menu
To access the document menu,
- Open the document dropdown by clicking the arrow to the right of the document name
- Select "Menu..." from the dropdown
To unfreeze your columns, navigate back to the submenu and select "No columns".
Alternatively, you can freeze up to and including a selected row by right clicking on the row header and selecting "Freeze row" from the dropdown. When you need to unfreeze the row, navigate back to the row dropdown and select "Unfreeze row".
Limitations on Freezing Rows
Any new freeze overrides the previous freeze. Because frozen rows cannot be vertically scrolled away, there is a limit to how far down you can freeze columns. To prevent you from accidentally freezing so many rows that you cannot scroll past them, an error message will appear if you try to freeze too many rows.
If you get this error, try moving the desired row to one of the earlier row positions and then freezing from there.
In addition to freezing rows, you can freeze columns. Or, try using row hierarchies to minimize and hide groups of rows.