- Hi there, need to learn how to unhide columns in Excel?
Let me help.
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Hey, I'm Sharyn from Excel at Work,
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So let's get to unhiding these columns.
There are different methods,
depending on the version of Excel you are using.
I'll take you through the method
that will work on any version.
Then I'll quickly cover
what's on offer in the newer versions
and then I'll take you through how to unhide column A
or row one, which is a bit tricky.
So stick with me and I'll show you a tip
on how to get them back.
And once I've helped you master unhiding columns,
to help you even more, I'll share with you a link
to where you can grab our free self-assessment tool,
where you can gauge your current skill level in Excel,
and create your own personal learning plan
to help you fill in any gaps.
Right, let's talk about unhiding columns.
Now, hiding columns is actually quite easy.
I'm just gonna go up and select using my black arrow
right at the top here in the column letter area.
I'm just gonna select over B and C.
Then right-click on my mouse, and going down to Hide.
And now, I have hidden columns B and C.
And that's a great thing to do.
If you've got a really big worksheet
and you've got a lot of information in there
that you don't want to look at,
you need to keep it,
but if it's just in the way, you can hide them.
Great too if you don't want to print those columns as well.
It's the getting them back that's a bit of a challenge.
I'm just gonna flick over here,
and hide these columns as well.
So again just a right-click and then Hide.
And then you can actually see.
Now I just want to let you know
that I am using Excel in my Office 365 subscription,
so if you're in an older version of Excel,
you may not be able to see these double lines up at the top.
I'm gonna talk about them in a minute.
But you will definitely be able to see
on your version of Excel,
where you do have hidden columns
because of course you will see that A to D,
B and C are missing, so of course they're hidden.
So let's talk about getting them back.
Now you may have tried to just go up to a column
next door to where they're hidden,
and done a right-click,
and gone unhide with no success,
and that's what most people try and do,
and it's a little bit scary when you're kind of like,
you've hidden stuff and then you can't get it back again.
So it's a really, really simple kind of move here.
A lot of people may tell you just to go
and select the entire worksheet.
Up here if you click on that little triangle up there
and then just do a right-click and then go Unhide,
but just a word of warning there,
you know that I've hid B and C and these columns over here,
every column will become unhidden if you do that.
So if you're in a shared file with other people,
and you have just unhidden all of their work as well,
they may not be that happy with you. (laughs)
So that's probably not my recommended way of doing it,
it will work but it will actually unhide everything.
So I'm just gonna do an undo
and of course we go back and now we're back to where we are.
So if you do do that you can of course go and do the undo
and get back to where you were previously.
This is what I would recommend you do.
Select the columns on either side of the hidden columns.
Now do a right-click Unhide,
and look, so these ones are still hidden,
and these ones are back.
So that is what you do, you select,
and I'll just show you that again,
you select on either side of the hidden columns,
and then you Unhide, and you will get them back.
That's really neat isn't it?
Now if you're in a newer version of Excel like I am,
and you've got a really steady hand,
you can try clicking and dragging
on those double lines up at the top there.
And if you've got a really good hand,
you might find that you can actually get them back,
but I'm telling you now, if there's a lot of them,
you'll be doing a lot of that clicking and dragging.
So that might not be the greatest way to do it.
But of course you can do that if you want to.
So that's fabulous, when you're actually actually working
just with randomly hidden columns.
And the same for rows.
So if I was to hide these rows down here,
and I just do a Hide and of course now you can see
it's going from row two to row five.
So selecting on either side and then a right-click
and then Unhide and they come back again,
so it's exactly the same.
Now let's go across to a challenge
that a lot of people come across,
and that's where column A and row one are hidden
and you're trying to get them back,
and you can't select on either side, can you?
So you're kind of like, "Oh, that's a bit of a pickle."
Now again, you could definitely do the whole select
and do the right-click, Unhide,
but of course as soon as I do that
it will actually unhide this area over here,
and that's not ideal.
So this is a little trick.
What you're going to do,
is you're going to use a shortcut key,
your F5 key on the keyboard,
function key 5 on the top of your keyboard,
if you press that,
it brings up something called the Go To dialog box.
Now type in a1, which will take you to cell A1.
Now we can't actually even see cell A1,
because row one's hidden and column A is hidden.
But as soon as we click on to that,
it kind of looks like it shot up there,
I don't know if you can see that on the screen.
Now once your actually on A1 what you can do,
from the Home tab,
you go over to Format and you go down to Hide & Unhide.
Now depending on what you're actually trying to unhide here,
you could actually be unhiding the row
or unhiding the column or both.
So if I go Unhide Row, we've got row one back, yay!
So if I now go up and do it again,
and we go down to Unhide,
and this time Unhide Columns,
and look at that, you get it back.
So that can actually be quite painful
and quite hard to get to.
So just remember that little shortcut key,
you press your F5, you do your A1,
and of course it will take you the hidden cell A1,
and then from there you can then just use your Format
and then, on the Home tab obviously,
and then the Hide & Unhide,
and select the option that you need.
So I really hope this instruction has been helpful
and has you back on track.
Just remember to select the columns
or the rows on either side of what is hidden
and then unhide.
And for the first column or the first row,
use the shortcut I showed you.
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about improving your Excel skills
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