How to Use Microsoft Excel for Free

Last Updated 9 June 2024. Uploaded by ExcelExperts.

Microsoft Excel is a powerful spreadsheet tool that’s widely used for data analysis, budgeting, and organizing information. While the full version of Excel is part of the Microsoft Office Suite, you can access a free version via Excel for the Web. This version is browser-based and offers many of the core features of Excel, without the need for a paid subscription. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to make the most of the free version of Microsoft Excel.

Accessing the Free Version of Excel

To access the free version of Microsoft Excel, follow the steps below.

Open your preferred web browser, and go to office.com.

If you already have a Microsoft account, click on “Sign In” at the top right corner, and enter your credentials. If you don’t have an account, click on “Sign Up for Free” and follow the prompts to create one.

Once signed in, you will be directed to the Office homepage. Click on the “Excel” icon to launch Excel for the Web.

This will freeze the top row of the spreadsheet, as shown below.

If you want to, instead if clicking on the “Freeze Top Row” button, you can also use the Keyboard Shortcut. On your keyboard, press Alt, W, F, R, one after the other (not all at the same time).

Note that after you freeze the top row, Excel will put a subtle grey border below the top row, indicating that it is frozen. This is shown below.

How to Unfreeze the Top Row

Once you have frozen the top row, you can unfreeze it again by clicking on the “Freeze Panes” button again, and then clicking on “Unfreeze Panes”, as shown below.

How to Freeze Other Parts of your Spreadsheet

Once you have frozen the top row, you can unfreeze it again by clicking on the “Freeze Panes” button again, and then clicking on “Unfreeze Panes”, as shown below.

If you want to freeze other parts of your spreadsheet, including the bottom rows or the right columns, see the related tutorials, below.

Lesson Summary

To freeze the top row of your spreadsheet, follow the below steps.

To unfreeze the top row of your spreadsheet, follow the below steps.

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