Ways to move, merge, hide, and change rows in Google Sheets

Quick ways to format Google Sheets header row

Headers are an essential part of any table – it's where name the whole content. That is why the first row (or even a few lines) of your table in Google Sheets is usually turned into a header row where each cell hints about what you will find in the column below.

To distinguish this row from others right away, you may want to change its font, borders, or a background color. The following tools will help you format Google Sheets header row:

1. Format option in the Google Sheets menu.
2. Standard formatting tools on the Google Sheets toolbar.
3. Table Styles add-on. Table Styles helps quickly format tables in Google Sheets (and header rows specifically). After you install it, you'll find it under Extensions > Table Styles > Start:

   Mainly, the styles differ in their color schemes. However, you can format different parts of the table in different ways, whether it's a Google Sheets header row, left or right column, or other parts. This way you will personalize your tables and highlight the most important data.

   The main advantage of Table Styles is its ability to create reusable styling templates. Just click on the rectangle with a plus icon (the first in the list of all styles) to start creating your own style. A new template will be created, and you'll be able to adjust it to your liking.

   Note. The default styles that exist in the add-on cannot be edited. The tool lets you add, edit, and delete your own styles only.

   Choose the part of the table that you want to change, set its appearance, and click Save:

   All these options make Table Styles a great tool that formats entire tables and their separate elements, including Google Sheets header row.

   Tip. Learn other ways to format your Google Sheets table from this blog post.

How to color every other row in Google Sheets

Unlike formatting of the header row, there are some tools designed specifically to color every other row in Google Sheets.

How to move rows in Google Sheets

There are 2 ways to rearrange your table & move one or more rows to another place:

1. Google Sheets menu. Highlight your line and choose Edit > Move > Row up/down. Repeat the steps to move it further.
2. Drag and drop. Select the row and drag-and-drop it to the needed position. This way you can move the row a few columns up and down.

How to hide and unhide rows in a spreadsheet

All tables may contain lines with data used for calculations but unnecessary for displaying. You can easily hide/unhide such rows in Google Sheets without losing the data:

1. Right-click the line you'd like to hide.
2. Choose Hide row from the context menu:
3. Row numbers won't change, but two triangles will prompt that there is a hidden line. Click on those arrows to reveal hidden rows back:

How to merge rows and cells in Google Sheets

You can not only move, delete, or hide rows in your Google Sheets — you can merge them to make your data look more elegant.

How to change row height in Google Sheets

You can improve the layout of your table by changing the height of some lines, a header row in particular. Here are a couple of easy ways to do that:

1. Drag and drop. Hover the cursor over the bottom border of the row, and when the cursor turns into an Up Down Arrow, click and drag the line down (or up) to resize as you need:
2. Use context menu. This way is especially useful when you need multiple lines of the same height. Simply select them all, right-click and choose Resize row [N]:

How to count rows with data in Google Sheets

At last, the table is ready, it has all the info, all rows and columns are right where they should be and of the needed size.

But are there any cells that could be unintentionally left empty? Let's count how many lines are actually filled with data.

I'll use the COUNTA function: it calculates the number of non-empty cells in the selected range. I want to see how many rows there are with the data in columns A, B, and D:

=COUNTA(A:A)

=COUNTA(B:B)

=COUNTA(G:G)

As you can see, formulas return different results. Why is that?

Column A has vertically merged cells, all rows in column B are filled with data, and only one cell in column C is missing an entry. That is how you can spot empty cells in the rows of your table.