- The Guardian, Monday 28 July 2008
It's not the most user-friendly application in the world, but Excel can sometimes be crucial to our working lives. Loathed by many, it's a bit like a cantankerous old man: intimidating at first, but scratch the surface and you'll develop a grudging respect for its wisdom.
One of the big problems with Excel spreadsheets is their size. At more than 16 million cells, they're great if you've got a lot of info to input but a bit tricky when it comes to navigation. Usually you won't need to see all of the data in a spreadsheet, and it's even less likely you'll want to print it all.
Things become more straightforward when you hide the rows and columns that aren't relevant to your project. To hide a row or column, select any cell within it and go to Format. Now choose Row or Column, depending on what you want to stow away, and go to Hide. You can also select the whole row or column (click on its number or letter heading) and right-click to reveal the Hide command.
To show the hidden cells again, select the row or column directly to the left and right of the hidden one and either go to Format, Row/Column and Unhide, or right-click and select Unhide. An even quicker way to hide a row is by selecting any cell within it and pressing Ctrl+9. To unhide, select the worksheet by pressing Ctrl+A and then press Ctrl+Shift+9.
