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The Split command is to be found in the View Tab of the Excel Ribbon. It allows users to split an Excel spreadsheet window into either two or four separate panes and is particularly useful for comparing data in different parts of a large worksheet.

To use the Split command, you must first activate the cell where you want the split to occur then click on the split button in the Window section of the View Tab of the Excel Ribbon. The horizontal and vertical bars which mark the split can be repositioned simply by dragging them. Separate scrollbars are displayed for each section; so, in the case of a vertical and horizontal split, you will have two horizontal scrollbars and two vertical scrollbars. To remove the split at any time, simply click on the split button once more.

A second and slightly more intuitive way of using the split command is to use the split boxes. These easy-to-miss controls are located above the vertical scroll bar and to the right of the horizontal scroll bar. For example, let’s say that we have a spreadsheet containing rows of sales figures. Suppose we want to be able to compare the sales figures of one particular sales rep with the figures of other reps. We can display two vertical panes by dragging the vertical split box. We will then be able to scroll to make the first person’s sales figures visible and in the top pane and then do the same to position the sales figures of any other sales person in the bottom pane.

Excel offers us a delightfully simple way of removing the split: simply double-click on the split line.

Similarly, let’s now say we want to focus on the total for each individual and that the totals are shown in column J. We can create both a vertical and horizontal split by dragging each of the two split boxes. We can then leave the salesperson’s name displayed in the left pane while in the pane on the right we can scroll across to make the total visible.

As we scroll up and down, we would then see the totals for each sales person next to the sales person’s name. If we would also like the heading to remain in place, we simply resize the top pane to make it one row deep, displaying only the headings, while we scroll the bottom pane up and down.

When we have finished reviewing our totals, we can remove the vertical split and leave the horizontal split in place. To do this, we just double-click on the vertical split line. To return to a completely normal Excel window, we would also double-click on the horizontal split line.