Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. 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: Hiding and Unhiding Rows.
Excel allows you to easily hide a row, meaning it will not be shown on the display or printed when you print the worksheet. The row is not deleted; its height is simply reduced to 0. To hide a row, follow these steps:
You can also hide rows by selecting those you want to hide, right-clicking on the selected rows, and choosing Hide from the resulting Context menu.
When you hide rows in a worksheet, you will notice that the other rows are not renumbered. Instead, a thick bar appears in the row header area (at the left side of the screen) to indicate that there are hidden rows at that point. You can unhide previously hidden rows by following these steps:
You can also unhide rows by selecting the rows on both sides of those you want to unhide (see step 1 for an example), right-clicking on the selected rows, and choosing Unhide from the resulting Context menu.
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (6292) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Hiding and Unhiding Rows.
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 you enter information into a row on a worksheet, Excel automatically adjusts the height of the row based on what you ...
Discover MoreNeed to check the height of all the rows in a worksheet and then adjust them if a particular criterion is met? This tip ...
Discover MoreExcel allows you to easily hide rows in a worksheet, so their contents are not visible. Figuring out how to detect where ...
Discover MoreFREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
2016-12-04 22:42:10
Alex B
The tip should work for unhiding the first row or column in a table unless its also the first row or column in the spreadsheet.
In Excel 2010, what works for me if Row 1 is hidden is to hover over the top left corner (the select all corner) and then lower you cursor until you get to the bottom margin of that square at which point the cursor changes to a double line with arrows in both directions. Double click and it will unhide the row.
This works for columns as well but you would move to the right hand side of that box for the cursor to change. I do find you need to need to scroll the sheet left to show the now unhidden first column.
The cursor change doesn't happen if there is nothing hidden in the direction you are trying to unhide.
You can also do <F5> a1 OK and then unhide but the above is easier. (ie Goto the hidden cell a1)
2016-11-30 05:56:40
Charles Pegman
HIDING OF COLUMNS
I have a worksheet where I use a macro to copy data from a "booking" sheet to an "invoice" sheet.
I hid some columns on the booking sheet to make things clearer and the invoices stopped working properly. After investigation it turns out that columns with width=0 are ignored by the macro, so all the subsequent cells are in the wrong place (by the number of cols hidden).
My fix is, rather than use "hide", I reset the width to 1 pixel. Not as neat on the screen but saves having to recode the macro.
2016-11-29 16:31:27
Tamara Power
If the first row is hidden, you can click the triangle in the top left corner to select the whole sheet, then right click on the row numbers and select unhide.
I'm with Alex though, I almost never hide rows or columns, I just group them so that they won't show. If I need hidden areas for formulas or lookup tables (for data validation drop down lists for example) I just put them all in named ranges on a new sheet. If it needs to be hidden then I can hide the whole sheet and not copy something over a hidden field by mistake.
2016-11-26 16:53:51
James Turner
The easiest way to hide a row is to highlight the row or rows, right click, and select hide. To unhide, highlight the visible rows on both sides of the hidden, right click and select unhide.
2016-11-26 13:37:00
Sheryl L
This method does not work for unhiding the first row or column in a table.
2016-11-26 06:03:04
Alex B
Its worth considering using Data > Group to hide the rows because that gives you a visual queue that you have rows hidden, as well as a toggle switch to hide and unhide the rows.
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 © 2019 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.
Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. 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