Hide Values Using a Number Format
September 28, 2023 - by Bill Jelen
![Hide Values Using a Number Format Hide Values Using a Number Format](/img/excel-tips/2023/09/hide-values-using-a-number-format.jpg)
Problem: Why did you use the white font to hide those cells? Isn’t there a custom number format to hide values?
Strategy: Yes. You could select the cells, press Ctrl+1, then choose Custom and type three semi-colons to hide the text in the cell.
![Format Cells, Number, Custom. Type three semi-colons as the type in order to hide data. ;;;](/img/content/2023/09/LE10001233.jpg)
Gotcha: While nothing will appear in the cells, if someone selects the cell, they can see the cell formula in the formula bar. If the cell contains a constant (i.e. anything other than a formula), then they will see the cell value as well.
![With the ;;; custom format, you can still see the value if you select the cell and look in the formula bar.](/img/content/2023/09/LE10001234.jpg)
The other problem with this method: if the data is being used in a chart, then the labels along both axis of the chart will be hidden as well. Here is the chart before hiding the data:
![A chart has labels along the X-axis:
Line 1
Line 2](/img/content/2023/09/LE10001236.jpg)
After hiding the data, the axis labels are gone.
![When you hide the data in the grid using ;;; the labels are also hidden in the chart.](/img/content/2023/09/LE10001235.jpg)
This article is an excerpt from Power Excel With MrExcel
Title photo by imso gabriel on Unsplash