In earlier posts, we have talked about protecting the whole worksheet or workbook by several kinds of passwords, and how to recover Excel password and remove those protections. In this passage, we will learn how to hide and unhide columns, rows, and window in Excel 2007.

In business work, you may need to analyze data in a large Excel table with tens of columns and thousands of rows, such as an order report. When you just want to check certain columns, what to do with the columns between them? Hide them to make your work more convenient.

Hide columns: Right-click the first column and then select hide from the list.

To unhide column, usually you can select the two columns before and after the hidden one, and then right click to choose unhide. As the hidden one is the column A, you cannot select the column before it, but you can unhide it in this way:

Select the whole worksheet, go to Format in Cells group under Home tab, and choose unhide columns as above picture shows. All hidden columns will be shown.

The ways to hide and unhide rows are similar: Right-click the row and then select hide from the list. To unhide it, select the two rows above and below the hidden one, and then right click to choose unhide.

How could we know the columns and rows are hidden? That is easy, if the numbers of columns and rows are not sequential, then there must be hidden ones.

Hide window: Go to View tab, and click Hide button in window group. The whole Excel workbook will be hidden. Click the active Unhide button to cancel hidden.

Caution: Hide is not secure enough, do not use it to protect your Excel file.