You can freeze columns in Excel with a few clicks, and then unfreeze them when you no longer need to view them statically.
If you've used Excel's Merge And Center tool for a long time (like I had), you could be forgiven for thinking there's no better alternative (like I did). Well, let me introduce you to Center Across ...
To create data bars in Excel, select your cells and then choose data bars from Conditional Formatting.