Software Tips & Tricks Copying Hidden Cells In Excel

By Laura Noble

When printing data from Excel, there are many times when you don’t want to print the entire spreadsheet, but only particular columns. The following are a few examples to help you make this process quick and easy.

Scenario One: You have a list of company names with the corresponding owners and Web site addresses in an Excel spreadsheet and you want to print the document without the owner’s name displayed.

Solution: Hide the Owner column.

• Left-click the Column Heading Letter (in sample above Letter B). This will select the entire column.
  
• Right-click the selection and left-click Hide
  
• Column B will be hidden and when list is printed only data from visible columns will be printed

Scenario Two: Using the same list, with the hidden column, you now want to copy this data but when you do the hidden data is copied, too!

Solution: Copy only the visible cells.

• Select the data to copy (in sample A1:C4) Press Alt + ; (semi-colon). This is a shortcut that selects visible cells only.
  
  
• Press the Copy icon or Ctrl + C to copy selection to the clipboard.
  
  
• Move your insertion point to the cell that will hold the duplication and press the Paste icon or Ctrl + V The top portion in the sample below illustrates the results of omitting the Alt + ; step when copying data that includes hidden cells.
  
  
• The bottom portion in the sample below illustrates results of including the Alt + ; step. Using the Alt + ; step when copying/pasting the hidden Owner column is excluded from the resulting paste.
  

Scenario Three: You are now ready to view and print all data including the Owner column.

Solution: Unhide the column.

• Select columns on both side of the hidden column
  
• Right-mouse click on selection and left-click
  
• Unhide Column B will reappear

  

Stay tuned to Networking Today in the coming months for more Software Tips & Tricks from Noble Software Solutions.

Laura Noble is the owner of Noble Software Solutions. Laura can be contacted at 519-680-2689 or by e-mail at lnoble@noblesoftwaresolutions.com.

Published in Networking Today, September 2001.