5.2.4.2  Freeze

You can freeze a field/column on the datasheet, which places the frozen column on the far left of the sheet and holds it rigidly in that position, even when you use the horizontal scroll tool to move the other columns back and forth.  You might have decided to sort the Author field/column in descending order, then to freeze the column, in order to check the paper/parchment ratio for a given author; you'd then want to scroll horizontally back to the beginning to retrieve the shelfmarks of manuscripts with texts by that author —in a column that has remained rigidly fixed on the left.

This is how you freeze one column.  You do not highlight the desired column.  You right-click in it.  You choose Freeze Columns from the context menu.  Voilà.

This is how you freeze more than one adjacent column at a time.  First hold down the left mouse button and then, without releasing it, click into the field selector headings at the top of the multiple and contiguous columns that you would like to freeze.  Release the left mouse button.  Put your cursor outside of the now highlighted space.  Right click.  Choose Freeze Columns from the context menu.  Voilà.

To make it all the simpler on the eye, highlight the row (or topmost row, or bottom row, or all rows) of the material you're trying to track back and forth along the horizontal scroll bar.  Just click once on the small blue box at the far left of the row you'll use as your eye-guide.  The whole row turns black —which does seem rather an odd color choice for an operation termed "highlighting" but never mind, it does the trick.

To Unfreeze?  Put your cursor in the frozen column, right-click, choose Unfreeze.  Seems obvious.  The trouble is that the previously frozen column refuses to give up its claim as First Left-hand Column.  To put it back in its place, highlight the entire column (by clicking in cell with the column's name at its summit), then drag that stubborn column to its old position. Put it in its place.