excel vba freeze pane without select

I need to be able to properly refreeze panes (when creating new windows, notably) without losing the activecell or messing up the visible range. It took a lot of playing around but I think I have something solid that works:

Sub FreezePanes(nbLignes As Integer, nbColonnes As Integer, Optional ByVal feuille As Worksheet)
    If feuille Is Nothing Then Set feuille = ActiveSheet Else feuille.Activate
    Error GoTo erreur
    With ActiveWindow
        If .View = xlNormalView Then
            If .FreezePanes Then .FreezePanes = False
            If .Split Then .Split = False

            .SplitColumn = nbColonnes
            .SplitRow = nbLignes

            If .Panes.Count = 4 Then 'rows and columns frozen
                .Panes(1).ScrollRow = 1
                .Panes(1).ScrollColumn = 1
                .Panes(2).ScrollRow = 1 'top right pane
                .Panes(3).ScrollColumn = 1 'bottom left pane
            ElseIf nbLignes > 0 Then .Panes(1).ScrollRow = 1
            ElseIf nbColonnes > 0 Then .Panes(1).ScrollColumn = 1
            Else: GoTo erreur
            End If

            .FreezePanes = True
        End If
    End With
    Exit Sub
erreur:
    Debug.print "Erreur en exécutant le sub 'FreezePanes " & nbLignes & ", " & nbColonnes & ", '" & feuille.Name & "' : code #" & Err.Number & Err.Description
End Sub

I found the previous answers only worked with some sheets when looping through tabs. I found the following code worked on every tab I looped through (target was a single workbook), despite which workbook was the activeworkbook.

The short of it:

With Application.Windows(DataWKB.Name) 
    Application.Goto ws.Cells(4, 5)
    .SplitColumn = 4
    .SplitRow = 3
    .FreezePanes = True
End With

The code as it is in my Sub: (be aware, I do a lot more formatting in this sub, I tried to strip that out and leave just the code needed here)

Sub Format_Final_Report()
Dim DataWKB As Workbook
Set DataWKB = Workbooks("Report.xlsx")
Dim ws As Worksheet

Dim tabCNT As Long
Dim tabName As String
tabCNT = DataWKB.Sheets.Count

For i = 1 To tabCNT
    Set ws = DataWKB.Worksheets(i)
    tabName = ws.Name


    With Application.Windows(DataWKB.Name)
        Application.Goto ws.Cells(4, 5)
        .SplitColumn = 4
        .SplitRow = 3
        .FreezePanes = True
    End With

Next i

End Sub

Hopefully, this will save someone some research time in the future.


There are many things to get wrong about freezing panes. I add my own answer, so I will find it here, and won't have to reinvent it next time.

Public Sub FreezePanesAt(rngDataTopLeft As Range)
    Dim wndCurrent As Window: For Each wndCurrent In rngDataTopLeft.Worksheet.Parent.Windows
        With wndCurrent
            .FreezePanes = False
            If Not ((rngDataTopLeft.Row = 1) And (rngDataTopLeft.Column = 1)) Then
                .ScrollRow = 1
                .ScrollColumn = 1
                .SplitRow = rngDataTopLeft.Row - 1
                .SplitColumn = rngDataTopLeft.Column - 1
                .FreezePanes = True
            End If
        End With
    Next
End Sub

Example usage:

FreezePanesAt ThisWorkbook.Worksheets("Sheet1").Range("B3")
FreezePanesAt ThisWorkbook.Names("Header").RefersToRange
  • The input parameter is the top left cell of the bottom right pane; I think this is the most frequent use case: you know the range at which to split and don't care about which workbook / worksheet / window it is in
  • If the input parameter is in the first row / first cell but not A1, then there will be only two panes; A1 is a special case, however, Excel would split the window at center of the current view, I prevented this because I can't think of any case where this would be intended
  • It iterates through all Windows attached to the workbook / worksheet; indexing into Application.Windows (Windows(Thisworkbook.Name)) won't cause an error if you have more windows to the same workbook (the name would be "MyWorkbook:1"), or Excel attempted (which usually fails) to repair a workbook after a crash (the name would be "MyWorkbook [Repaired]")
  • It takes into consideration that panes may already be frozen and the user / another macro might have scrolled to a location in the workbook, and the top left cell in the window is not A1

Record yourself using the View ► Freeze Panes ► Freeze Top Row command and this is what you get for .FreezePanes.

With ActiveWindow
    If .FreezePanes Then .FreezePanes = False
    .SplitColumn = 0
    .SplitRow = 1
    .FreezePanes = True
End With

So modifying the .SplitColumn and/or .SplitRow properties should do it for you regardless on what the ActiveCell property is.

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Excel

Vba