Detecting Hidden Rows

Jesse has a large worksheet that may contain hidden rows. He wonders if there is a way to find out if there are hidden rows in the worksheet other than by looking down the many rows to see what's missing. If he unhides all the hidden rows, he still won't be able to tell what, if any, rows may have been hidden.

One way you can identify hidden rows is to follow these general steps:

1. In a column that has nothing in it, select all the cells that will cover the area you want to check. (You can select the entire column, if you desire, but that may be overkill.)
2. Press Alt+; (that's a semicolon). Excel selects only the unhidden cells in the selected range.
3. Press X (or some other viewable character) and press Ctrl+Enter. This puts the character (X) into all the visible cells.

Unhide all the rows, and you'll be able to easily see which cells in that column don't have the character (X) in them. These are the rows that were previously hidden. You could also, if desired, use the same general approach, but after step 2 (instead of step 3) you could apply some pattern or color to the cells. Once you unhide all the rows, those cells without any pattern or color are the ones that were previously in hidden rows.

If you don't want to unhide rows at all, perhaps the best way to find out the information is to use a macro. The following simple macro steps through the first 1,000 rows of a worksheet and then lists, in a message box, the rows that are hidden.

Sub ShowRows()
    Dim rng As Range
    Dim r As Range
    Dim sTemp As String

    Set rng = Range("A1:A1000")
    sTemp = ""
    For Each r In rng.Rows
        If r.EntireRow.Hidden Then
            sTemp = sTemp & "Row " & Mid(r.Address, 4) & vbCrLf
        End If
    Next r

    If sTemp > "" Then
        sTemp = "The following rows are hidden:" & vbCrLf & _
          vbCrLf & sTemp
        MsgBox sTemp
    Else
        MsgBox "There are no hidden rows"
    End If
End Sub

Note that the heart of the macro—where it determines whether a row is hidden or not—is in checking the Hidden property of the EntireRow object. If this property is True, then the row is hidden.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (12216) 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: Detecting Hidden Rows.