"Freeze Panes" is grayed out.

[jan001]

A co-worker is working with an old spreadsheet - SaveAs indicates it was created, or at least last saved, in Excel 97-2003. Freeze Panes is grayed out and nothing I've tried so far has un-grayed it.

I did a SaveAs in 2010 (which is what we all have on our computers at work) to the format for Excel Workbook, so .xlsx. No help. It did complain that it couldn't work with an embedded image, but that image wasn't "mission critical". Other than that, it saved it as far as I can see.

The sheet isn't protected. It's in Normal view; I switched to Page Layout view and back to Normal, which I'd seen had worked for some to restore Freeze Panes, but no go.

Is it just that there's too much of a gap between Excel 97-2003 and Excel 2010? Or is there an easy fix staring me in the face and I'm just not seeing it?

 

[shg]

Is the workbook protected?

 

[jan001]

No, it isn't. (Sorry - I should've included that specifically.)

Is the workbook protected?

 

[FDibbins]

do you have more than 1 sheet selected (grouped)?

 

[tygrrboi]

Are some cells already frozen? Try clicking Unfreeze and then trying again?

 

[Michael M]

Do you have split screen on somewhere ??

 

[jan001]

It's a single-sheet workbook. No existing split. Can't unfreeze/re-freeze because the Freeze Pane icon is grayed out.

What I did try and seems to have worked was that I copied the area contained in the print area from the original sheet into a brand new workbook, opened within Excel 2010. When I got that, I got the Freeze Pane back live again. Fingers crossed it stays good. If it does, it seems to suggest the problem may have to do with the original being created in a really old version of Excel.

Thank you, as ever, to the members of this incredibly helpful community!

 

[Amanda Wilso]

Freeze Panes is not compatible within the "Page Layout View". If you switch to "Normal View", Freeze Pane should become an active option. If however, you wish to remain in "Page Layout View", you may choose the "Split Pane Button" located to the right of "Freeze Pane".