How to Unhide Rows in Excel

This wikiHow teaches you how to force one or more hidden rows in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to display. Open the Excel document. Double-click the Excel document that you want to use to open it in Excel.
Method 1 of 3:

Unhiding All Hidden Rows

  1. How to Unhide Rows in Excel Picture 1How to Unhide Rows in Excel Picture 1
    Open the Excel document. Double-click the Excel document that you want to use to open it in Excel.
  2. How to Unhide Rows in Excel Picture 2How to Unhide Rows in Excel Picture 2
    Click the "Select All" button. This triangular button is in the upper-left corner of the spreadsheet, just above the 1 row and just left of the A column heading. Doing so selects your entire Excel document.
    1. You can also click any cell in the document and then press Ctrl+A (Windows) or Command+A (Mac) to select the whole document.
  3. How to Unhide Rows in Excel Picture 3How to Unhide Rows in Excel Picture 3
    Click the Home tab. This tab is just below the green ribbon at the top of the Excel window.
    1. If you're already on the Home tab, skip this step.
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    Click Format. This option is in the "Cells" section of the toolbar near the top-right of the Excel window. A drop-down menu will appear.
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    Select Hide & Unhide. You'll find this option in the Format drop-down menu. Selecting it prompts a pop-out menu to appear.
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    Click Unhide Rows. It's in the pop-out menu. Doing so immediately causes any hidden rows to appear in the spreadsheet.
    1. You can save your changes by pressing Ctrl+S (Windows) or Command+S (Mac).
Method 2 of 3:

Unhiding a Specific Row

  1. How to Unhide Rows in Excel Picture 7How to Unhide Rows in Excel Picture 7
    Open the Excel document. Double-click the Excel document that you want to use to open it in Excel.
  2. How to Unhide Rows in Excel Picture 8How to Unhide Rows in Excel Picture 8
    Find the hidden row. Look at the row numbers on the left side of the document as you scroll down; if you see a skip in numbers (e.g., row 23 is directly above row 25), the row in between the numbers is hidden (in 23 and 25 example, row 24 would be hidden). You should also see a double line between the two row numbers.[1]
  3. How to Unhide Rows in Excel Picture 9How to Unhide Rows in Excel Picture 9
    Right-click the space between the two row numbers. Doing so prompts a drop-down menu to appear.
    1. For example, if row 24 is hidden, you would right-click the space between 23 and 25.
    2. On a Mac, you can hold down Control while clicking this space to prompt the drop-down menu.
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    Click Unhide. It's in the drop-down menu. Doing so will prompt the hidden row to appear.
    1. You can save your changes by pressing Ctrl+S (Windows) or Command+S (Mac).
  5. How to Unhide Rows in Excel Picture 11How to Unhide Rows in Excel Picture 11
    Unhide a range of rows. If you notice that several rows are missing, you can unhide all of the rows by doing the following:
    1. Hold down Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac) while clicking the row number above the hidden rows and the row number below the hidden rows.
    2. Right-click one of the selected row numbers.
    3. Click Unhide in the drop-down menu.
Method 3 of 3:

Adjusting Row Height

  1. How to Unhide Rows in Excel Picture 12How to Unhide Rows in Excel Picture 12
    Understand when this method is necessary. One form of hiding rows involves the height of the row(s) in question to be so short that the row effectively disappears. You can reset the height of all spreadsheet rows to "14.4" (the default height) to address this.
  2. How to Unhide Rows in Excel Picture 13How to Unhide Rows in Excel Picture 13
    Open the Excel document. Double-click the Excel document that you want to use to open it in Excel.
  3. How to Unhide Rows in Excel Picture 14How to Unhide Rows in Excel Picture 14
    Click the "Select All" button. This triangular button is in the upper-left corner of the spreadsheet, just above the 1 row and just left of the A column heading. Doing so selects your entire Excel document.
    1. You can also click any cell in the document and then press Ctrl+A (Windows) or Command+A (Mac) to select the whole document.
  4. How to Unhide Rows in Excel Picture 15How to Unhide Rows in Excel Picture 15
    Click the Home tab. This tab is just below the green ribbon at the top of the Excel window.
    1. If you're already on the Home tab, skip this step.
  5. How to Unhide Rows in Excel Picture 16How to Unhide Rows in Excel Picture 16
    Click Format. This option is in the "Cells" section of the toolbar near the top-right of the Excel window. A drop-down menu will appear.
  6. How to Unhide Rows in Excel Picture 17How to Unhide Rows in Excel Picture 17
    Click Row Height…. It's in the drop-down menu. This will open a pop-up window with a blank text field in it.
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    Enter the default row height. Type 14.4 into the pop-up window's text field.
  8. How to Unhide Rows in Excel Picture 19How to Unhide Rows in Excel Picture 19
    Click OK. Doing so will apply your changes to all rows in the spreadsheet, thus unhiding any rows which were "hidden" via their height properties.
    1. You can save your changes by pressing Ctrl+S (Windows) or Command+S (Mac).
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