I absolutely love Excel and use Excel workbooks for organizing groups of related data. Since a single workbook can contain countless worksheets, this makes Excel a useful tool. For example, I use a single Excel workbook to manage the various articles featured on the Filetonic Web site. One worksheet contains a master list of all “Ask a Tech Jock” questions that have come in. Another contains a list of ideas for future topics. Another worksheet contains a pivot table report that I use to compile data for sending to management. Another worksheet contains a list of passwords and credentials that I need to log into various accounts and Web sites. You get the idea.
However, there are times when you might not want a worksheet to be visible to others. For example, if I needed to share this workbook with others, I wouldn’t want them to see the worksheet with all of my passwords and log in credentials. Another instance where one might want to hide worksheets is when the worksheets aren’t frequently needed. By hiding these extra worksheets, the Excel workbook becomes easier to navigate. The fewer worksheets visible, the easier it is to find the worksheets that you use the most.
If you can’t find a worksheet in Excel, chances are it is hidden. First, double check that you’ve looked at all of the visible worksheets and haven’t accidentally overlooked any. Sometimes, if you have multiple worksheets, not all of them show up in the area where the tabs to each sheet are displayed. You’ll need to click arrow that takes you to the first worksheet (it looks like this |<) and then click through each tab in search of the worksheet you need.
Didn’t find it? Then it’s probably hidden. Unhiding is easy. Simply right-click any worksheet’s tab and a small menu appears. Choose Unhide. A display box appears showing you the names of all hidden worksheets. Double click the worksheet that you want to unhide.
Hiding and unhiding Excel worksheets is a good way to keep all of your data in a single workbook without having the workbook grow too cluttered. Now that you know how to unhide worksheets, you also know how to hide them. Using the right-click submenu also gives you even more tricks up your sleeve including using colored tabs to color code your worksheets.
In the case of confidential data such as my worksheet containing log on credentials, hiding the worksheets isn’t the best way to prevent other users from viewing it because other users know how to look for hidden worksheets. If you must share a workbook containing sensitive data, your best bet is to hide the rows and columns containing the sensitive data and then protect the worksheet with a password. From there, you can also hide the worksheet. This way, if someone discovers your hidden worksheet, they can unhide it but they won’t be able to unhide the hidden rows and columns containing your confidential information unless they know the password.
