Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, and 2013. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: Easy Value Hiding.
Excel provides many different ways to hide the content of your workbooks. Perhaps one of the easiest (and most novel) ways is to use the custom formatting feature of the program. Follow these steps:
Figure 1. The Number tab of the Format Cells dialog box.
Now the information in the cell is not visible, nor will it print. You can, however, see the information in the Formula Bar, and it can be overwritten if you enter anything else in the cell.
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (6122) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, and 2013. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Easy Value Hiding.
Professional Development Guidance! Four world-class developers offer start-to-finish guidance for building powerful, robust, and secure applications with Excel. The authors show how to consistently make the right design decisions and make the most of Excel's powerful features. Check out Professional Excel Development today!
When working with very large numbers in a worksheet, you may want the numbers to appear in a shortened notation, with an ...
Discover MoreWant some dashes automatically added in values you display in a cell? It may be trickier to develop a custom format than ...
Discover MoreWhile the implementation of custom formats in Excel is not terribly robust, you can still achieve some amazing results ...
Discover MoreFREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
2015-08-13 15:47:54
Kim Wennerberg
I find this useful because by its very nature, Excel is both a data tool and a data display tool. Sometimes I want data to be there, but not have it visible. I have used color font = color of fill previously, but this is nicer.
2013-09-27 06:36:35
Tips is amazing to me. But what is its use.
2013-07-08 09:30:11
Bryan
This is really clever, though I can't think of a reason you would ever need to use it.
2013-07-06 22:40:13
Vicki Murray
If it is just one item, go to the cell that has a title in it (e,g,: cell A1) and change the custom format as shown but after the 3 semi-colons, enter the text for the header. No matter what the value of the cell is, it will read your header.
Take it one set further. Go to the "protection" tab (shown above), click "Hidden" and and "Lock" if desired to lock in the value. Then protect or lock the spreadsheet. Now the value of the cell can't be seen. If you calculate on the cell, it looks like you are operating on a text.
2013-07-06 13:17:48
Walter Antoku
I just usually change the font to "white", assuming I'm printing to a white background.
2013-07-06 09:26:07
Thank you, very nice tip,
By the way, i used to display the zero values as -, using ##,#;-##,#;"-"
Got a version of Excel that uses the ribbon interface (Excel 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the menu interface.
FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
Copyright © 2018 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.
Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, and 2013. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: 
Comments