Hiding Columns Based on a Cell Value

Excel's great conditional formatting capabilities allow you to change the formatting of cells based on the content of a cell. There is no way, unfortunately, to easily hide entire columns of data based on the value of a particular cell.

You can, however, achieve the desired effect by using a macro to analyze the cell and adjust the Hidden attribute of the row you want to conditionally hide. The following simple macro, for instance, examines the contents of cell B4 and, if the cell contains 0, hides column H. If cell B4 does not contain 0, then column H is displayed.

Sub HideColumn1()
    If Range("B4").Value = 0 Then
        Columns("H").EntireColumn.Hidden = True
    Else
        Columns("H").EntireColumn.Hidden = False
    End If
End Sub

If you want the hiding and unhiding of the column to be done in real time, you can use the following version of the macro. Just make sure that you put this version in the code window for the worksheet on which you want it to work.

Private Sub Worksheet_SelectionChange(ByVal Target As Range)
    If Range("B4").Value = 0 Then
        Columns("H").EntireColumn.Hidden = True
    Else
        Columns("H").EntireColumn.Hidden = False
    End If
End Sub

Notice that the guts of the two macros are the same. The only difference is that the second version is triggered by an event within Excel—the changing of which cell is currently selected. This means that every time you move from one cell to another, the value in B4 is checked and column H is either hidden or unhidden.

If it is possible that the contents of cell B4 could be empty, then it is possible that Excel will interpret that emptiness as a zero value. In that case, you can modify the macro just a bit so that it checks for an empty cell.

Sub HideColumn2()
    Dim rCell As Range
    Set rCell = Range("B4")

    Columns("H").EntireColumn.Hidden = False
    If (Not IsEmpty(rCell))
      And (IsNumeric(rCell)
      And (rCell.Value = 0) Then
        Columns("H").EntireColumn.Hidden = True
    End If
End Sub

This version of the macro actually checks three conditions: that B4 is not empty, that it contains a numeric value, and that the value is 0. If all three of these conditions are met, then column H is hidden.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (3283) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Excel (Excel 2007 and later) here: Hiding Columns Based on a Cell Value.