In an Excel Spreadsheet (Microsoft)

I have been wondering how to lock a few rows and/or columns at the top-left in Excel. I have seen that being done many times, but did not know how to do it myself...

In the Windows menu (Before Office 2007) and in the View menu (Since Office 2007) you will find an option named Freeze Panes. You have three selections:

1. Freeze the selected top rows
2. Freeze the selected left columns
3. Freeze the selected top rows and left columns

If you just need one row and/or column, place your cursor in the A1 cell (the very first top-left cell).

To freeze more rows and/or columns, place your cursor in the A1 cell, then select the number of rows and the number of columns you want to freeze.

Then select the menu option that applies to your case.

Now when you scroll your data, these top rows and left columns don't move. They are frozen in place. Very practical to keep the labels visible in long tables.

In a Calc Spreadsheet (OpenOffice)

Now a day, I use Calc a lot more as I'm spending 99% of my time on Linux and OpenOffice runs on that system. Much easier for me.

In the View menu, there is an option named Freeze Rows and Columns. This option means that all the rows toward the top and colums toward the left of the current cursor location will get frozen.

In other words, you place your cursor in the first cell which is still to scroll left/right and up/down, then use that option. All the cells above and toward the left are then frozen in place.

For example, if you want a top row and one left column to be frozen in place, you would click on cell B2 and then click View >> Freeze Rows and Columns.

To freeze a different region, go to another cell and select View >> Freeze Rows and Columns again.

To remove the freeze, go to the first cell which scrolls and select View >> Freeze Rows and Columns. Another way is to select View >> Freeze Rows and Columns twice in a row. The first time, the freeze moves to your current position and the second time it gets released. One last solution is to go to cell A1 and View >> Freeze Rows and Columns once.