Hide columns using VBA in Excel

Hiding one or more columns on a worksheet

Hiding a column can be simple. Below code hides column C on the active worksheet. If you set the property Hidden to False the column becomes visible again.


Columns("D").Hidden = True

Below code hides multiple columns (D. E and F).


Columns("D:F").Hidden = True

Hiding columns in a range

error '1004': Unable to set the Hidden property of the Range class

When starting with a range which is not a complete column you will get run-time error '1004': Unable to set the Hidden property of the Range class.


Dim rng As Range: Set rng = Application.Range("B2")
rng.Hidden = True

You can fix this by applying EntireColumn to the range:


Dim rng As Range: Set rng = Application.Range("B2")
rng.EntireColumn.Hidden = True

Make a column xlVeryHidden

xlVeryHidden is not supported for Columns. A workaround is to hide it and then protect the sheet.

Getting the code using Code VBA

The animation below shows how the Code VBA add-in helps with coding this task.

  1. Select Object 'Sheet1' - here we want to hide columns in the same workbook as the one that has the code module
  2. Select Columns - the collection you want to work on
  3. Select Properties and Hidden - the visibility is determined using the 'Hidden' property
  4. Let the property have the value 'True'
  5. Specify the subset of the Columns you want to hide
hide columns