How to Show or Hide the Ribbon in Excel

Excel can be a powerful tool, but it can also be overwhelming if you don’t know how to use it properly. One of the most important parts of the Excel interface is the Ribbon. The Ribbon is the display at the top of the Excel window, through which you can access Excel commands and functions. In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to show or hide the Ribbon in Excel.

To show the Ribbon in Excel, click on the icon in the top right-hand corner of the screen, the one with an arrow pointing up, which is the icon for Ribbon Display Options. From the menu that appears, select ‘Show Tabs and Commands’. Excel will immediately show the Ribbon with all the functions it offers when the display is set on the standard.

If you want to make your working area in the spreadsheet larger, you can try the other two options. Let’s select the first option, ‘Auto-hide Ribbon’, and see what happens now. This option hides the Ribbon, but once we need it, we can always ‘call’ it by clicking into the bar located at the top of the window. The Ribbon will appear, and you’ll be able to choose whichever function you need. Then you click anywhere within the spreadsheet area, and the Ribbon will disappear again. Once it’s not visible, you can work with the spreadsheet extended full screen.

To see individual tab names, click on the Ribbon Display Options icon again, but now select ‘Show Tabs’. In this view, you’ll see individual tab names. Whenever needed, just click on a tab name, and you’ll see the options of the tab that were previously hidden. Pick the function you need and click anywhere in the spreadsheet area to hide the options again. Only tab names will stay visible.

To switch views according to what you need is easy – simply click on the icon in the top right-hand corner and choose whichever view suits you best. To get back to the standard view, go for ‘Show Tabs and Commands’, where all the tab names and the options are visible at all times.

Now that you know how to show or hide the Ribbon in Excel, you can focus on using the application to its full potential. If you’re interested in learning how to show or hide the formula bar in Excel, watch the next EasyClick Academy video tutorial!