How to Hide Columns in Excel
In this tutorial, you will learn how to hide columns in excel completely.
When working on our data tables in excel, we might sometimes need to hide some particular columns we have in them. We may want to make our data tables look leaner or we may want to hide our data processing columns.
There are several methods we can use if we want to hide columns in excel. If you have mastered them, you should be able to make your columns hidden easily!
Want to learn those methods you can use to hide columns in excel? Read this tutorial until its last part!
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Table of Contents:
How to Hide Columns in Excel 1: Format Button
First of all, let us learn how to hide columns in excel by using the button that excel provides in its ribbon. Here are the step-by-step to implement this first method.-
Highlight the column you want to hide by clicking on its letter note on the top
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Go to the Home tab in your Excel ribbon and click the Format button there
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Highlight Hide & Unhide in the Format button dropdown list and choose Hide Columns
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Done!
How to Hide Columns in Excel 2: Right-Click
Another method we can use to hide columns in excel is by using right-click. Here are the steps if you want to implement this method instead.-
Highlight the column you want to hide by clicking on its letter note on the top
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Right-click on the highlighted column and click Hide
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Done!
How to Hide Columns in Excel 3: Shortcut Buttons
You can also hide columns in excel without needing to use a mouse or touchpad. Here is the way to do it.-
Move your cell cursor until it is in the column you want to hide
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Press Ctrl + Space (Control + Space in Mac) buttons on your keyboard
- Press Ctrl + 0 (Control + 0 in Mac) buttons on your keyboard
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Done!
How to Hide Multiple Columns in Excel
The steps we discuss in those methods above seem to only be applicable if we want to hide just one column at a time.What about if we want to hide multiple columns at the same time? Well, we just need to highlight multiple columns before we hide the columns.
To highlight multiple adjacent columns, click the most left/right column letter note of the adjacent columns. Then, press and hold the Shift button while clicking the most right/left column letter note of the adjacent columns.
You can also just click and drag on column letter notes until you have highlighted all the adjacent columns you want to highlight. Another way is to highlight the most left/right column of the adjacent columns and press the right/left directional button while holding the Shift button. Do that until you have highlighted all the adjacent columns you want.
The result should be like this.
If you want to hide multiple non-adjacent columns, hold the Ctrl (Command in Mac) button while clicking on the columns letter notes you want to highlight. The result should be like this.
Then, you just need to implement the steps from the three methods above after you highlight the columns you want to hide. You should be able to hide multiple columns at once by doing that!
Exercise
After you have learned how to hide columns in excel, let’s do a simple exercise. This is so you can understand better the lessons you have learned.Open an excel file you have and try to hide the columns it has by using the three methods we have discusses above. What is the result? Can you do it?
If you still can’t hide the columns, read again the steps we have provided for you!
Additional Note
If you have large data tables in excel, then hiding columns in them can be handy.You can show only the columns you want to show at the moment and hide the rest. That way, you don’t have to skim through your data tables just to see each of the columns you want.
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