Excel basics: freeze panes, adding up and filters

Excel can look intimidating, but a few simple tricks solve many everyday headaches. Menus differ between versions, so use the closest wording.

Freeze panes: keep headings in view

When you scroll down a long list, the headings can disappear. To keep them:

1. Click the cell just below the heading row and to the right of any column you want to keep.
2. Click the View tab.
3. Click Freeze Panes, then choose Freeze Panes again.

To undo it, go to the same menu and choose Unfreeze Panes. You can also choose Freeze Top Row if you only need the top line.

Adding up numbers

1. Click the empty cell below the numbers you want to add.
2. Click AutoSum on the Home tab (it shows a Greek letter sigma).
3. Check that the highlighted numbers are the right ones.
4. Press Enter.

You can also type =SUM( and then drag over the cells, close the bracket and press Enter. If the total looks wrong, some numbers may have been entered as text. They are often left-aligned or have a green corner.

Filtering a list

1. Click inside your data.
2. Click the Data tab and then Filter.
3. Small arrows appear on each heading. Click one and untick what you do not want to see.
4. Click OK.

Filtered rows are hidden, not deleted. To show everything again, click Clear in the same menu, or turn Filter off.

Sorting

Use the filter arrow and choose to sort A to Z or smallest to largest. Make sure you select all the columns first, or sort inside a filtered table, so that rows stay together. Sorting only one column scrambles data.

Be careful

• Save a copy before big changes.
• Do not delete rows when you mean to hide them.
• Use Ctrl + Z to undo a mistake straight away.

When to get more help

Contact us if figures keep changing unexpectedly, if formulas show errors such as #REF! or #VALUE!, or if a business spreadsheet is very important and you are not sure it is correct.