Columns in excel not showing

If the first row (row 1) or column (column A) is not displayed in the worksheet, it is a little tricky to unhide it because there is no easy way to select that row or column. You can select the entire worksheet, and then unhide rows or columns (Home tab, Cells group, Format button, Hide & Unhide command), but that displays all hidden rows and columns in your worksheet, which you may not want to do. Instead, you can use the Name box or the Go To command to select the first row and column.

1. To select the first hidden row or column on the worksheet, do one of the following:

   • In the Name Box next to the formula bar, type A1, and then press ENTER.

     

   • On the Home tab, in the Editing group, click Find & Select, and then click Go To. In the Reference box, type A1, and then click OK.

     

2. On the Home tab, in the Cells group, click Format.

   

3. Do one of the following:

   • Under Visibility, click Hide & Unhide, and then click Unhide Rows or Unhide Columns.

   • Under Cell Size, click Row Height or Column Width, and then in the Row Height or Column Width box, type the value that you want to use for the row height or column width.

     Tip: The default height for rows is 15, and the default width for columns is 8.43.

If you don’t see the first column (column A) or row (row 1) in your worksheet, it might be hidden. Here’s how to unhide it. In this picture column A and row 1 are hidden.

To unhide column A, right-click the column B header or label and pick Unhide Columns.

To unhide row 1, right-click the row 2 header or label and pick Unhide Rows.

Tip: If you don’t see Unhide Columns or Unhide Rows, make sure you’re right-clicking inside the column or row label.

Why Are The Columns/Rows Missing?

If you landed on this article, you’ve probably been pulling your hair out trying to figure out why you can’t unhide your Excel spreadsheet rows or columns. They just appear to be missing!

This is not a glitch or bug within your Excel file, it’s actually an intended spreadsheet feature (when used correctly). The feature that is causing this is Excel’s Freeze Panes button.

Why Is This Happening?

When you apply Freeze Panes to your spreadsheet, it essentially locks the view based on where the window is scrolled to. This means that if there are rows/columns that are not visible to either the left or top of your spreadsheet, these cells will remain unviewable once Freeze Panes has been activated. This essentially prevents you from accessing (unhiding) them.

An alternate scenario where this will occur is when Row 1 is part of an outline group and is collapsed prior to the Freeze Pane being applied. Oddly enough, this does not occur is Column A is part of a collapsed group as you can freely expand/collapse the group after the Freeze Pane has been applied.

Steps To Access/Fix The Locked Rows Or Columns

1. Go to the View tab in your Excel Ribbon

2. Click the Freeze Panes menu button within the Windows button group

3. Select the Unfreeze Panes button

Now you should be able to access those “missing” rows or columns.

Why Is Hiding With Freeze Panes Useful?

Locking (hiding) rows or columns with the freeze panes button can be a passive-aggressive way to keep others from vital formulas you don’t want messed with. If you don’t want to deal with setting and remembering passwords, this can be a great alternative to preventing your users from easily accessing sections of your spreadsheet.

Hidings Rows or Columns With Freeze Panes

If you would like to hide or lock yourself from being able to access rows in the top portion or columns on the left side of your spreadsheet, you simply need to do the following:

1. Scroll horizontally and vertically to position any rows/columns you wish to hide so they do not appear on your screen

2. Select the cell you wish to designate for your Freeze Panes application

3. Navigate to the View Tab and enable your Freeze Panes

After you have completed these steps, you will be unable to access the rows or columns you locked from view until your click the Unfreeze Panes button.

Hiding Grouped Rows With Freeze Panes

If you would like to hide or lock yourself from being able to access an outline grouping of rows in the top portion of your spreadsheet, you simply need to do the following:

1. Apply your outline grouping to the rows you wish to collapse

   • IMPORTANT! In order for this to work, Row 1 must be part of your grouping. If it is not, you will still be able to expand the outline group when the Freeze Panes are applied.

2. Select the cell you wish to designate for your Freeze Panes application

3. Navigate to the View Tab and enable your Freeze Panes

After you have completed these steps, you will be unable to access the collapsed rows until your click the Unfreeze Panes button.

I Hope This Helped!

Hopefully, I was able to explain how you can unlock or lock rows/columns in your spreadsheet using the Freeze Panes feature. If you have any questions about this technique or suggestions on how to improve it, please let me know in the comments section below.

About The Author

Hey there! I’m Chris and I run TheSpreadsheetGuru website in my spare time. By day, I’m actually a finance professional who relies on Microsoft Excel quite heavily in the corporate world. I love taking the things I learn in the “real world” and sharing them with everyone here on this site so that you too can become a spreadsheet guru at your company.

Through my years in the corporate world, I’ve been able to pick up on opportunities to make working with Excel better and have built a variety of Excel add-ins, from inserting tickmark symbols to automating copy/pasting from Excel to PowerPoint. If you’d like to keep up to date with the latest Excel news and directly get emailed the most meaningful Excel tips I’ve learned over the years, you can sign up for my free newsletters. I hope I was able to provide you with some value today and I hope to see you back here soon!

— Chris

Watch Video – How to Unhide Columns in Excel

If you prefer written instruction instead, below is the tutorial.

Hidden rows and columns can be quite irritating at times.

Especially if someone else has hidden these and you forget to unhide it (or even worse, you don’t know how to unhide these).

While I can’t do anything about the first issue, I can show you how to unhide columns in Excel (the same techniques can also be used to unhide rows).

It may happen that one of the methods of unhiding columns/rows may not work for you. In that case, it is good to know the alternatives that can work.

There are many different situations where you may need to unhide the columns:

1. Multiple columns are hidden and you want to unhide all columns at once
2. You want to unhide a specific column (in between two columns)
3. You want to unhide the first column

Let’s go through each for these scenarios and see how to unhide the columns.

Unhide All Columns At One Go

If you have a worksheet that has multiple hidden columns, you don’t need to go hunt each one and bring it to light.

You can do that all in one go.

And there are multiple ways to do this.

Using the Format Option

Here are the steps to unhide all columns at one go:

1. Click on the small triangle at the top left of the worksheet area. This will select all the cells in the worksheet.
2. Right-click anywhere in the worksheet area.
3. Click on Unhide.

No matter where that pesky column is hidden, this will unhide it.

Note: You can also use the keyboard shortcut Control A A (hold the control key and hit the A key twice) to select all the cells in the worksheet.

Using VBA

If you need to do this often, you can also use VBA to get this done.

The below code will unhide column in the worksheet.

Sub UnhideColumns ()
Cells.EntireColumn.Hidden = False
EndSub

You need to place this code in the VB Editor (in a module).

If you want to learn how to do this with VBA, read a detailed guide on how to run a macro in Excel.

Note: To save time, you can save this macro in the Personal Macro Workbook and add it to the quick access toolbar. This will allow you to unhide all columns with a single click.

Using a Keyboard Shortcut

If you’re more comfortable using keyboard shortcuts, there is a way to unhide all columns with a few keystrokes.

Here are the steps:

1. Select any cell in the worksheet.
2. Press Control-A-A (hold the control key and press A twice). This will select all the cells in the worksheet
3. Use the following shortcut – ALT H O U L (one key at a time)

If you can get hang of this keyboard shortcut, it could be a lot faster to unhide columns.

Note: The reason you need to press A twice when holding the control key is that sometimes when you press Control A, it only selects the used range in Excel (or the area that has the data) and you need to press the A again to select the entire worksheet.

Another keyword shortcut that works for some and not for others is Control 0 (from a numeric keypad) or Control Shift 0 from a non-numeric keypad. It used to work for me earlier but doesn’t work anymore. Here is some discussion on why it may happen. I suggest you use the longer (ALT HOUL) shortcut that works every time.

Unhide Columns in Between Selected Columns

There are multiple ways you can quickly unhide columns in between selected columns. The methods shown here are useful when you want to unhide a specific column(s).

Let’s go through these one-by-one (and you can choose to use that you find the best).

Using a Keyboard Shortcut

Below are the steps:

1. Select the columns that contain the hidden columns in between. For example, if you are trying to unhide column C, then select column B and D.
2. Use the following shortcut – ALT H O U L (one key at a time)

This will instantly unhide the columns.

Using the Mouse

One quick and easy way to unhide a column is to use the mouse.

Below are the steps:

Using the Format Option in the Ribbon

Under the home tab in the ribbon, there are options to hide and unhide columns in Excel.

Here is how to use it:

Another way of accessing this option is by selecting the columns and right clicking using the mouse. In the menu that appears, select the unhide option.

Using VBA

Below is the code that you can use to unhide columns in between the selected columns.

Sub UnhideAllColumns()
Selection.EntireColumn.Hidden = False
End Sub

You need to place this code in the VB Editor (in a module).

If you want to learn how to do this with VBA, read a detailed guide on how to run a macro in Excel.

Note: To save time, you can save this macro in the Personal Macro Workbook and add it to the quick access toolbar. This will allow you to unhide all columns with a single click.

By Changing the Column Width

There is a possibility that none of these methods work when you try to unhide column in Excel. It happens when you change the Column Width to 0. In that case, even if you unhide the column, it’s width still remains 0, and hence you can’t see it or select it.

Below are the steps to change the column width:

This is by far the most reliable way to unhide columns in Excel. If everything fails, just change the column width.

Unhide the First Column

Unhiding the first column can be a little bit tricky.

You can use many of the methods covered above, with a little bit of extra work.

Let me show you a few ways.

Use the Mouse to Drag the First Column

Even when the first column is hidden, Excel allows you to select it and drag it to make it visible.

To do this, hover the cursor on the left edge of column B (or whatever is the leftmost visible column).

The cursor would change into a double arrow pointer as shown below.

Hold the left mouse button and drag the cursor to the right. You will see that it unhides the hidden column.

Go to a Cell in the First Column and Unhide it

But how do you go to any cell in the column that’s hidden?

Good question!

You use the Name Box (it’s left to the formula bar).

Enter A1 in the Name Box. It will instantly take you to the A1 cell. Since the first column is hidden, you won’t be able to see it, but be assured that it’s selected (you’ll still see a thin line just left of B1).

Once the hidden column cell is selected, follow the below steps:

• Click the Home tab.
• In the Cells group, click on Format.
• Hover the cursor on the ‘Hide & Unhide’ option.
• Click on ‘Unhide Columns’

Select the First Column and Unhide it

Again! How do you select it when it’s hidden?

Well, there are many different ways to skin the cat.

And this is just another method in my kitty (this is the last cat sounding reference I promise).

When you select the leftmost visible cell and drag the cursor to the left (where there are row numbers), you end up selecting all the hidden columns (even when you don’t see it).

Once you have select all the hidden columns, follow the below steps:

• Click the Home tab.
• In the Cells group, click on Format.
• Hover the cursor on the ‘Hide & Unhide’ option.
• Click on ‘Unhide Columns’

Check The Number of Hidden Columns

Excel has an ‘Inspect Document’ feature that is meant to quickly scan the workbook and give you some details about it.

And one of the things that you can do that ‘Inspect Document’ is to quickly check how many hidden columns or hidden rows are there in the workbook.

This might be useful when you get the workbook from someone and want to quickly inspect it.

Below are the steps on how to check the total number of hidden columns or hidden rows:

1. Open the workbook
2. Click on the File tab
3. In the Info options, click on the ‘Check for Issues’ button (it’s next to the Inspect Workbook text).
4. Click on Inspect Document.
5. In the Document Inspector, make sure Hidden Rows and Columns option is checked.
6. Click the Inspect button.

This will show you the total number of hidden rows and columns.

It also gives you the option to delete all these hidden rows/columns. This can be the case if there is extra data that has been hidden and is not needed. Instead of finding hidden rows and columns, you can quickly delete these from this option.

You May Also Like the following Excel Tips/Tutorials:

• How to Insert Multiple Rows in Excel – 4 Methods.
• How to Quickly Insert New Cells in Excel.
• Keyboard & Mouse Tricks that will Reinvent the Way You Excel.
• How to Hide a Worksheet in Excel.
• How to Unhide Sheets in Excel (All In One Go)
• Excel Text to Columns (7 Amazing things you can do with it)
• How to Lock Cells in Excel
• How to Lock Formulas in Excel

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While doing data analysis in excel you would have noticed that all the data is not important for the end user (can be your boss).

Some of the columns are used merely for calculation purpose and that’s why it’s better to hide these columns as they create un-necessary confusions.

But now when it comes to unhide these columns, there are few complications. In this post I will show you a few ways by which you can easily unhide your hidden columns in Excel.

So here we go:

Un-hiding Columns in Excel the Easy Way

This is the easiest way to unhide columns in excel. Follow the below steps to use this method:

1. First of all select one column on either side of the hidden column.
2. Now, with all these columns selected right-click on the column header.
3. This will open a popup menu, select the ‘unhide’ option and the hidden columns will be visible.

Unhide Columns in Excel Using the Shortcut

Actually, Microsoft Excel has provided certain shortcut keys for hiding rows and columns in your spreadsheets. These shortcut keys are in the below table:

The procedure of using these shortcut keys is quite simple. First, select one column on either side of the hidden column and then press the shortcut key.

Unhide Column or Rows shortcut keys not working?

Many Windows 8 and Windows 10 users have reported that the shortcut key for un-hiding the hidden columns doesn’t work on their systems.

Let’s understand why this happens. Microsoft Windows 8 and Windows 10 operating systems have assigned the ‘CTRL+SHIFT’ keys for Regional/ Language settings for changing the keyboard layouts. This functionality probably assigns numbers to different layouts.

So, the root of this problem is that whenever you press the column un-hiding shortcut key your OS gulps the keys and hence it interferes with the functionality of Microsoft Excel.

How to resolve this issue

The resolution of this issue is pretty obvious and that is changing the Keyboard Layout shortcut. Follow the below steps:

1. First open the ‘Control Panel’, navigate to the ‘Change keyboards or other input methods’ link.
2. Now a ‘Region and Language’ dialog box opens, select the ‘Keyboard and Language’ Tab and click on the ‘Change Keyboard’ button.
3. Next, a new window ‘Text Services and Input Languages’ opens, here select the ‘Advance Key Settings’ tab and then click the ‘Change Key Sequence’ button.
4. Under ‘Switch Keyboard Layout’, set the radio button to Not Assigned (or one of the other options, if you need this feature to be available).
5. Click the ‘Ok’ button and now the unhide column shortcut key will start working in Excel.

This resolution is suggested in the Microsoft Knowledge Base article.

Unhide Columns or Rows in Excel using a VBA script

If you want to unhide your spreadsheet columns by using a code then you can use the following macro for this task:

Sub Unhide_AllColumns() 
ActiveSheet.Cells.EntireColumn.Hidden = False 
End Sub

This small macro will unhide all the hidden columns in your active worksheet. If you also want this macro to unhide all the rows as well then simply add a line:

ActiveSheet.Cells.EntireRow.Hidden = False

So, these are some of the ways to Unhide Columns in Excel. Do share if you know any other ways to do the same.