thank you so much missb you're right that is easy, well it is once you know how. problem solved, i wish i had seen this yesterday. thanks again 
just want to let you know that this worked perfectly thank you again.
Eish this was so handy, this was the second time I tried to do this with no joy, until I saw this solution from miss b. thank you so much, i feel great

Single & Not Looking
Ah, been there done that Autumn, but it's easy peasy!
First of all instead of trying to freeze each one individually you actually do it simultaneously as follows:
Assuming that you want to freeze the "EMPLOYEE" column and the first 3 rows.
You will go to the cell that is directly to the right of the column you want to freeze and in this case the 4th row down (you said you wanted to freeze the top 3 rows) you always go to the row directly under the rows you want to freeze.
You will now see 2 solid lines which indicates that anything to the left and above those lines are frozen.