Dealing with a massive Excel sheet? Freezing panes or splitting the screen can make navigation easier and help you stay oriented.

When your Excel sheets get too long or too wide, it becomes difficult to keep an eye on the headings or the first few columns. Fortunately, Excel offers two powerful features to make navigation easier: freeze panes and split screen.

Freeze panes: keep rows or columns visible

The Freeze Pane feature allows you to keep certain rows or columns visible while you scroll through your sheet. It‘s ideal for:

  • Keep column headings visible
  • Track data without losing context
  • Work on large sheets without confusion

The Freeze Panes menu offers 3 options:

  • Freeze Panes: Keeps the rows above and columns to the left of the selected cell visible.
  • Freeze Top Row: Keeps the first line visible.
  • Freeze First Column: Keeps the first column visible.

Freeze Top Row

When you choose this option, the 1st row of your table is frozen. So when you scroll through your sheet, it always stays in view.

  1. Go to the View tab.
  2. Click Freeze Panes.
  3. Select Freeze Top Row.

Useful for keeping headers visible while scrolling vertically.

In our example, we can see that line 15 follows line 1 when displayed.

Freeze First Column

When you choose this option, the 1st column of your table is frozen. So when you scroll through your sheet, it always stays in view.
  1. On the View tab, click Freeze Panes.
  2. Choose Freeze First Column.

Perfect for tracking names or IDs when scrolling horizontally.

In our example, we can see that column D follows column A on display.

Freeze multiple rows and/or columns

The Freeze Pane option (the default) is special. This is because the rows and columns will be frozen depending on where your cursor is located.

When a cell is selected, all columns to the left of the selected cell are frozen, and all rows at the top of that cell are frozen.

  1. Select the cell just below the rows and to the right of the columns you want to freeze.
  2. Click View > Freeze Panes > Freeze Panes

In our example, cell E8 is selected. Columns A to D and rows 1 to 7 are thus fixed.

When you scroll through the table, these rows and columns are still visible.

Tip: Sometimes you get a file that seems impossible to navigate. Check that the panes are not frozen.

Unfreeze Panes

If you want to go back to free navigation:

  • Go to View > Freeze Panes.
  • Click Unfreeze Panes.

Split Screen: For a Parallel View

The Split function allows you to divide the Excel window into several viewing areas. Each area can be scrolled independently.

  1. Select a cell.
  2. Click View > Split

This creates horizontal and/or vertical divider bars depending on the selected cell.

The screen is divided into 4. It is possible to navigate independently in each quarter window.

In our example, columns E and H and rows 31 and 5064 are displayed side by side.

This function is also very useful when you want to see the beginning and end of an array (in case of copying a query for example).

A scenario in the article: Excel : Copier et coller une formule sur une ou plusieurs colonnes, même en présence de cellules vides

To delete the fraction:

Click Split again to turn off the split view.

Summary of functions

Function Main Utility Quick Access
Freeze top row Keep titles visible by scrolling View > Freeze panes
Freeze the first column Track IDs View > Freeze panes
Freeze Multiple Panes Large Sheet Navigation Selection + Freeze Panes
Split Screen Parallel View of Multiple Zones View > Split