Chapter 3: Performing Basic Worksheet Operations
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You can set the row height manually, however, by using any of the following techniques. As
with columns, you can select multiple rows:■ (^) Drag the lower row border with the mouse until the row is the desired height.
■ Choose Home ➪ Cells ➪ Format ➪ Row Height and enter a value (in points) in the
Row Height dialog box.
■ Double-click the bottom border of a row to set the row height automatically to the
tallest entry in the row. You can also choose Home ➪ Cells ➪ Format ➪ AutoFit Row
Height for this task.
Changing the row height is useful for spacing out rows and is almost always preferable to
inserting empty rows between lines of data.
Hiding rows and columns
In some cases, you may want to hide particular rows or columns. Hiding rows and columns
may be useful if you don’t want users to see particular information or if you need to print a
report that summarizes the information in the worksheet without showing all the details.
Chapter 27, “Creating and Using Worksheet Outlines,” discusses another way to summarize worksheet
data without showing all the details—worksheet outlining.
To hide rows in your worksheet, select the row or rows that you want to hide by clicking in
the row header on the left. Then right-click and choose Hide from the shortcut menu. Or,
you can use the commands on the Home ➪ Cells ➪ Format ➪ Hide & Unhide menu.
To hide columns, use the same technique, but start by selecting columns rather than rows.
You can also drag the row or column’s border to hide the row or column. You must drag the border in the row or col-
umn heading. Drag the bottom border of a row upward or the right border of a column to the left.
A hidden row is actually a row with its height set to zero. Similarly, a hidden column has
a column width of zero. When you use the navigation keys to move the active cell, cells in
hidden rows or columns are skipped. In other words, you can’t use the navigation keys to
move to a cell in a hidden row or column.
Notice, however, that Excel displays a narrow column heading for hidden columns and a
narrow row heading for hidden rows. You can click and drag the column heading to make
the column wider—and make it visible again. For a hidden row, click and drag the small
row heading to make the row visible.
Another way to unhide a row or column is to choose Home ➪ Editing ➪ Find & Select ➪ Go
To (or use one of its two shortcut keys: F5 or Ctrl+G) to select a cell in a hidden row or col-
umn. For example, if column A is hidden, you can press F5 and go to cell A1 (or any other
cell in column A) to move the active cell to the hidden column. Then you can choose Home
➪ Cells ➪ Format ➪ Hide & Unhide ➪ Unhide Columns.