Programming MS Excel to freeze panes - Article Example

Programming MS Excel to freeze panes Insert Insert Introduction Freezing panes is the process whereby a section of the worksheet remains constant while you are scrolling other sections of the same worksheet. Freezing panes facilitates the locking of these rows or columns (Johnson, 2007. The aim is to keep particular columns or rows visible when scrolling. To freeze the top row containing headings, you need to select the row then click on menu view. You then select freeze top menu under the submenu freeze panes. Meanwhile, to freeze a number of rows, select the rows then under the freeze panes submenu, you select freeze panes. The same applies to when applying to more than one column. However, to implement freezing panes on the first column, you choose the first column under the freeze submenu. After using the freeze panes, in either case, you remove by selecting unfreeze panes.
The purpose of using freezing panes is to maintain your track on cells, and rows or columns of data that you feel are vital when making navigations through the worksheet. Further, it is very vital when working with an extreme number of rows and columns. It is so because irrespective of where you are scrolling, the headings will always be visible thus making it easier to relate where the data belongs. The user is said to remain in perspective with the data concerned.
Freezing panes differs from the views in the database. First, freezing panes aims to keep a section of the worksheet visible i.e. keep its state constant to allow the user to relate to other parts of the worksheet especially when there are many columns and rows involved. Views, on the other hand, retrieve information from data store that meets the particular criterion. In essence, database views are more flexible (Lightstone, Teorey & Nadeau, 2007). The results it can return is custom to users needs and covers a wider scope as compared to freezing panes in Excel that has a predefined way of using it. Further, freezing panes is strictly restricted to navigation where some section is mobile while the others are constant whereas views deal with data.
References
Johnson, S. (2007). Microsoft Office 2007 on Demand. Indianapolis, IN: Que Pub.
Lightstone, S., Teorey, T., & Nadeau, T. (2007). Physical database design. Amsterdam: Morgan Kaufmann/Elsevier. Read More