MS Excel: How To Hide Or Show Columns In Excel

Added On: Jun 17, 2023

Last Update: Aug 17, 2023

Excel provides functionality to hide some of the columns of your Excel worksheet. Users can hide or show/unhide columns of the worksheet for many other reasons.

Excel columns can be hidden if the user wants to hide data that is used in calculations or in validations and there is no need to display that data to the user. There is a possibility that the user wants to hide a column of the Excel worksheet temporarily because he/she wants to make the easier view of the worksheet or trying to work on other columns.

As mentioned both scenarios can be performed, if you have knowledge, of how to hide or show columns in Excel. Here is a proper steps-to-steps guide available for both hide or unhide columns in Excel.

How to Hide Columns in Excel

Excel hide column functionality can work with simple steps only. Perform the steps given below to hide columns in Excel.

Open, Worksheet and select a particular column to hide. You can select one or more columns to hide at once for that you need to select the headers of the columns. Just select one column and then drag the selection to the next column to select multiple columns in the Excel worksheet.
Excel column can be hidden using 2 ways:

Way 1: Just select the columns an right click. A menu list will open on right click, select Hide from the list to hide the column. Hide columns in Excel using shortcut key ^0.

Way 2: Select one or more columns then Click on the Format option available at the right side in the "Home" tab at the top. Click on the "Format" option to open the drop-down list
Now in "Visibility" section click on Hide & Unhide option.
Here you will have another drop-down, where you need to click on Hide Columns option to hide a column from a worksheet.

How to Unhide Columns in Excel

Excel Unhide column functionality can work with simple steps only. Perform the steps given below to hide columns in Excel.

First, you have to select one column before and one column after. Example: As shown in the image, Column B and Column C are hidden, So, to unhide these two columns you need to select Column A and Column D together by dragging the selection. Another way is to just select the Entire worksheet by clicking on the top left corner of the worksheet.
Excel column can be Unhide using 2 ways:

Way 1: Just select the columns an right click. A menu list will open on right-click, select Unhide from the list to unhide the column. Unhide columns in Excel using shortcut key ^↑0.

Way 2: Select one or more columns then Click on the Format option available at the right side in the "Home" tab at the top. Click on the "Format" option to open the drop-down list
Now in "Visibility" section click on Hide & Unhide option.
Here you will have another drop-down, where you need to click on the Unhide Columns option to unhide the column of the worksheet.