In my recent overview of the new iWork ‘09, I mentioned the new Freeze Header feature in Numbers. This feature is basically the same as the Freeze Pane function in Microsoft Excel. It lets you set one or more rows or columns to always stay visible, even when scrolling around a large spreadsheet.
Since I’ve been seeing some people searching the Web for information on how to use this new feature, I thought I’d post this quick tip here.
The Freeze Pane function in Numbers ‘09 works a bit different than in Excel. In Numbers, you can only freeze header rows and columns. These headers are special in that Numbers knows that they’re not part of the actual data in a table, but rather sort of a “label” for the respective rows and columns.
To define header rows and columns, open up the Inspector by selecting View->Show Inspector in the menu (or by pressing 
I) and select the Table Inspector (third from the left).
The second section from above is labeled Headers & Footer. Here you can select how many header rows or columns you want your table to have. And at the bottom of those menus, you can select if you want the headers to be frozen.
To access folders you use often more easily, drag the folder to a convenient spot in the PLACES section of the Finder’s sidebar.
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for the help. I am new to Numbers. I had already built my table and could not designate the existing columns as frozen header columns. I had to “cut” the 5 columns, then use the Inspector to designate 5 frozen header columns, then paste the columns back in. It took about 5 seconds to reformat and everything looked and worked fine. I hope that little bit of information helps someone else.
I can’t figure out how to do what you describe to do. Can you use more words to describe the “how to” process. I too am an excel user and I need pictures and descriptive words to navigate around Numbers. Thanks
For some reason I do not have the option to freeze the header in that drop down only to repeat headers on all pages. I did as the other poster did since this was an existing spreadsheet and still the option did not appear. Any thoughts?
Thanks
Rick
Muchas gracias!
I bought my first mac a month ago. I made a mistake. I used freeze panes for decades (2 or 2.some) and just assumed it would be available in numbers. I need to freeze and unfreeze to work with University marks databases (i teach in China now). 2 clicks in EXCEL. I cant believe it.
Can you have more than 5 header rows and columns?
Can you have more than 5 header rows and columns?
Apparently not.
This was helpful, but it only got me halfway there. I soon found out that in order for the above to work, you also have to go to the ‘Table’ menu in Numbers 09 and select ‘Freeze Header Rows’ and/or ‘Freeze Header Columns’. Once you do that, you should be set.
@Chris Kohler
Or buy yourself VMware Fusion and you can run windows for excel.
Thanks, couldn’t find this for a while. Works great!
Also if you’ve already built your spreadsheet, hover over the row number and click on the drop-down menu that gives you ‘Add another row’ for example, and the first option will be ‘Convert to Header Row’. I had already told it that I wanted 1 header row and to ‘Freeze the Header Rows’ in the Inspector. ‘Convert to Header Rows’ was only available for the first 2 rows of my spreadsheet.
Hope this helps someone too!
Kathy at 1.28.10 is the only one that worked for me. I got to 4 rows, but had to walk it down, one “Convert to Header Row” at a time.
Kathy’s comment above is key: Apparently you must convert the desired row to a header row and the rest works. Thanks, Kathy!
Thanks so much for sharing tips. Sooo helpful. Especially using the “convert to header row” command in the drop down (after hovering over the row) - that’s what made it work for me
What update did this become available with? I had never seen it. Thanks!