Hiding and Showing Rows and Columns with C++

Sometimes, it makes sense to hide certain rows or columns in a worksheet and display them later. Microsoft Excel provides this feature, and so does Aspose.Cells.

Controlling the Visibility of Rows and Columns

Aspose.Cells provides a class, Workbook, that represents a Microsoft Excel file. The Workbook class contains a WorksheetCollection that allows developers to access each worksheet in the Excel file. A worksheet is represented by the Worksheet class. The Worksheet class provides a Cells collection that represents all cells in the worksheet. The Cells collection provides several methods for managing rows or columns in a worksheet. A few of these are discussed below.

Hiding Rows and Columns

Developers can hide a row or column by calling the HideRow and HideColumn methods of the Cells collection respectively. Both methods take the row and column index as a parameter to hide the specific row or column.

#include <iostream>
#include <memory>
#include "Aspose.Cells.h"
using namespace Aspose::Cells;

int main()
{
    Aspose::Cells::Startup();

    // Source directory path
    U16String srcDir(u"..\\Data\\01_SourceDirectory\\");

    // Output directory path
    U16String outDir(u"..\\Data\\02_OutputDirectory\\");

    // Path of input Excel file
    U16String inputFilePath = srcDir + u"book1.xls";

    // Create workbook from the input file
    Workbook workbook(inputFilePath);

    // Access the first worksheet in the Excel file
    Worksheet worksheet = workbook.GetWorksheets().Get(0);

    // Hide the 3rd row of the worksheet
    worksheet.GetCells().HideRow(2);

    // Hide the 2nd column of the worksheet
    worksheet.GetCells().HideColumn(1);

    // Save the modified Excel file
    U16String outputFilePath = outDir + u"output.out.xls";
    workbook.Save(outputFilePath);

    std::cout << "Rows and columns hidden successfully. File saved to: " << outputFilePath.ToUtf8() << std::endl;

    Aspose::Cells::Cleanup();
    return 0;
}

It is also possible to hide a row or column by setting the row height or column width to 0 respectively.

Showing Rows and Columns

Developers can show any hidden row or column by calling the UnhideRow and UnhideColumn methods of the Cells collection respectively. Both methods take two parameters:

• Row or column index - the index of a row or column that is used to show the specific row or column.
• Row height or column width - the row height or column width assigned to the row or column after unhiding.

#include <iostream>
#include "Aspose.Cells.h"
using namespace Aspose::Cells;

int main()
{
    Aspose::Cells::Startup();

    // Source directory path
    U16String srcDir(u"..\\Data\\01_SourceDirectory\\");

    // Path of input excel file
    U16String inputFilePath = srcDir + u"book1.xls";

    // Create workbook from file
    Workbook workbook(inputFilePath);

    // Access the first worksheet in the Excel file
    Worksheet worksheet = workbook.GetWorksheets().Get(0);

    // Unhide the 3rd row and set its height to 13.5
    worksheet.GetCells().UnhideRow(2, 13.5);

    // Unhide the 2nd column and set its width to 8.5
    worksheet.GetCells().UnhideColumn(1, 8.5);

    // Save the modified Excel file
    U16String outputFilePath = srcDir + u"output.xls";
    workbook.Save(outputFilePath);

    Aspose::Cells::Cleanup();

    std::cout << "File modified and saved successfully!" << std::endl;

    return 0;
}

While making a hidden column visible, if you need to restore it to previously assigned width or to its original width, please unhide the column with a negative width. For example: worksheet.Cells.UnhideColumn(5, -1)

Hiding Multiple Rows and Columns

Developers can hide multiple rows or columns at once by calling the HideRows and HideColumns methods of the Cells collection respectively. Both methods take the starting row or column index and the number of rows or columns that should be hidden as parameters.

#include <iostream>
#include <memory>
#include "Aspose.Cells.h"
using namespace Aspose::Cells;

int main()
{
    Aspose::Cells::Startup();

    // Source directory path
    U16String srcDir(u"..\\Data\\01_SourceDirectory\\");

    // Output directory path
    U16String outDir(u"..\\Data\\02_OutputDirectory\\");

    // Path of input Excel file
    U16String inputFilePath = srcDir + u"book1.xls";

    // Create workbook from the input file
    Workbook workbook(inputFilePath);

    // Access the first worksheet in the Excel file
    Worksheet worksheet = workbook.GetWorksheets().Get(0);

    // Hide 3, 4, and 5 rows in the worksheet (zero-based index)
    worksheet.GetCells().HideRows(2, 3);

    // Hide 2 and 3 columns in the worksheet (zero-based index)
    worksheet.GetCells().HideColumns(1, 2);

    // Save the modified Excel file
    workbook.Save(outDir + u"outputxls");

    std::cout << "Rows and columns hidden successfully!" << std::endl;

    Aspose::Cells::Cleanup();
}

It is also possible to use the Cells class' UnhideRows and UnhideColumns methods to make multiple rows and columns visible.