The need for hiding rows in Excel may arise for a number of practical applications. This article shares two simple ways to do that with screenshots so you can try out what you read here and know what to expect.
#1: Using the ‘Hide’ Functionality
On the left margin of the sheet where you see the row numbers, click on the row number you want to hide. When clicked, the row will appear selected. Now, right click and select the option ‘Hide’. This will hide the desired row.
Quick tip: There’s a shortcut to hide rows in Excel. Just select the row to hide and press ‘Ctrl + 9’.
Unhiding Hidden Rows
Now if you’re wondering how do you unhide rows in Excel, here’s a simple way to do that. Let’s say you have hidden row number 3. Go to the row number margin and select the columns 2 and 4. Once selected, right click and select the option ‘Unhide’.
Using this method, you can even unhide multiple rows in Excel between the two selected rows. So, if you had hidden rows 3, 4 and 5, selecting rows 2 and 6 and selecting the option ‘Unhide’ will unhide all the hidden rows between rows 2 and 6.
Quick tip: There is a shortcut in Excel to unhide rows too. After selecting rows between which the rows are hidden, just press ‘Ctrl + Shift + 9’.
To unhide all hidden rows in Excel, press ‘Ctrl + A’ and then press ‘Ctrl + Shift + 9’. This will unhide all hidden rows in Excel.
#2: Using Group to Hide Rows in Excel
Another way to hide rows in Excel is to use the Group function. This function basically bundles up a series of rows you want to hide and is located in the ‘Data’ tab in Excel.
To Group cells, you need to highlight the rows you want to hide and press ‘Group. Once you do that, you will see a ‘+’ sign appear near the row numbers. If the sign says ‘+’, that’s when all selected rows are hidden and you can see them by pressing the ‘+’ sign. If it says ‘-‘, this means that the selected rows are visible and you can press the ‘-‘ sign to hide them. The rows that were grouped will also show a small dot in front of the row numbers so you know exactly which rows were hidden when they are open.
The shortcut to group selected rows as in the screenshot below is ‘Shift + Alt + Right’
Ungrouping Rows in Excel
Ungrouping hidden rows in Excel is also just as simple. Just select the rows you want to remove the Group functionality from and press ‘Ungroup’ or use the shortcut as in the screenshot below – ‘Shift + Alt + Left’.
Now that you’ve learnt the simple ways to hide and unhide rows in Excel without Visual Basic, you can put it to use in your Excel application. Check out more informative articles on Excel functionalities here!
