Highlight one column in excel

Unlike other Microsoft Office programs, such as Word, Excel does not provide a button that you can use to highlight all or individual portions of data in a cell.

However, you can mimic highlights on a cell in a worksheet by filling the cells with a highlighting color. For a fast way to mimic a highlight, you can create a custom cell style that you can apply to fill cells with a highlighting color. Then, after you apply that cell style to highlight cells, you can quickly copy the highlighting to other cells by using Format Painter.

If you want to make specific data in a cell stand out, you can display that data in a different font color or format.

Create a cell style to highlight cells

1. Click Home > New Cell Styles.

   Notes: 

   • If you don’t see Cell Style, click the More button next to the cell style gallery.

   • 

2. In the Style name box, type an appropriate name for the new cell style.

   Tip: For example, type Highlight.

3. Click Format.

4. In the Format Cells dialog box, on the Fill tab, select the color that you want to use for the highlight, and then click OK.

5. Click OK to close the Style dialog box.

   The new style will be added under Custom in the cell styles box.

6. On the worksheet, select the cells or ranges of cells that you want to highlight. How to select cells?

7. On the Home tab, in the Styles group, click the new custom cell style you created.

   Note: Custom cell styles are displayed at the top of the list of cell styles. If you see the cell styles box in the Styles group, and the new cell style is one of the first six cell styles on the list, you can click that cell style directly in the Styles group.

Use Format Painter to apply a highlight to other cells

1. Select a cell that is formatted with the highlight that you want to use.

2. On the Home tab, in the Clipboard group, double-click Format Painter , and then drag the mouse pointer across as many cells or ranges of cells that you want to highlight.

3. When you’re done, click Format Painter again or press ESC to turn it off.

Display specific data in a different font color or format

1. In a cell, select the data that you want to display in a different color or format.

   How to select data in a cell

   To select the contents of a cell	Do this
   In the cell	Double-click the cell, and then drag across the contents of the cell that you want to select.
   In the formula bar	Click the cell, and then drag across the contents of the cell that you want to select in the formula bar.
   By using the keyboard	Press F2 to edit the cell, use the arrow keys to position the insertion point, and then press SHIFT+ARROW key to select the contents.

2. On the Home tab, in the Font group, do one of the following:

   • To change the text color, click the arrow next to Font Color  and then, under Theme Colors or Standard Colors, click the color that you want to use.

   • To apply the most recently selected text color, click Font Color .

   • To apply a color other than the available theme colors and standard colors, click More Colors, and then define the color that you want to use on the Standard tab or Custom tab of the Colors dialog box.

   • To change the format, click Bold , Italic , or Underline .

     Keyboard shortcut  You can also press CTRL+B, CTRL+I, or CTRL+U.

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• How to Highlight a Column in Excel? [Window 10 & 11 Guide]

By Charlotte | Follow |
Last Updated August 05, 2022

Do you know how to highlight a column in Excel? In this post, MiniTool Partition Wizard provides you with a helpful method to help you highlight the column and make it easier to find your cursor.

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet developed by Microsoft for Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS. It features calculation capabilities, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). 

Microsoft Excel is suitable for various environments, you can use it to calculate your income and expenses, or use it in an enterprise to calculate, analyze, search, display, etc. the data of finance, personnel, production, R&D and other departments.

How to Highlight a Column in Excel?

When you are handling a lot of data on one spreadsheet, you find it is hard to find where the cursor is. So, in this post, you can know how to highlight a column in Excel to make the cursor easily findable. To highlight a column in Excel, you can do as follows to achieve it.

Step 1. Launch Microsoft Excel on your computer.

Step 2. Select the cells where you want to apply this formatting. 

Step 3. Go to the Home tab and click on Conditional Formatting.

Step 4. Then select New Rule from the drop-down menu of Conditional Formatting.

Step 5. In the New Formatting Rule window, select «Use a formula to determine which cells to format» below the Select a Rule Type option.

Step 6. Under the Formal values where this formula is true, type»=CELL(«col»)=COLUMN()» in the box.

Step 7. Click on Format.

Step 8. Then you will open the Format Cells window. You can set the Number, Font, Border, and Fill according to your preference. Once done, click OK to save it.

Step 9. Next, click on OK to apply the new rule.

Step 10. Once done, you can see a highlighted column. But when you select the next column, nothing happens.

Step 11. To make the other column you selected be highlighted, you need to press F9 first, and then select the column which needs to be highlighted. Then you can get what you want.

Further Reading:

How to make the switch of highlight a column easier?

To make it become easier, you can use Visual Basic to change it. Here’s the way:

1. Press Alt and F11 keys at the same time to open Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window.
2. Then click on Microsoft Excel Objects to expand it.
3. Double-click on the sheet where you did this formatting.
4. Next, you need to type the following code to the selected sheet and close the window. Once done, you don’t need to press F9 to recalculate.

Bottom Line

From this post, you can learn how to highlight a column in Excel. After the column is highlighted, the cursor on the spreadsheet can be found easily and your work can be easier too.

If you are interested in MiniTool Partition Wizard and want to know more about it, you can visit MiniTool Partition Wizard’s official website by clicking the hyperlink. MiniTool Partition Wizard is an all-in-one partition manager and can be used for data recovery and disk diagnosis.

About The Author

Position: Columnist

Charlotte is a columnist who loves to help others solve errors in computer use. She is good at data recovery and disk & partition management, which includes copying partitions, formatting partitions, etc. Her articles are simple and easy to understand, so even people who know little about computers can understand. In her spare time, she likes reading books, listening to music, playing badminton, etc.

Sometimes you may have a big chunk of data in Excel. You may easily get lost when you are looking at the data. Do you know you can create a spotlight effect with a few steps?

In this article, I will show you how to highlight current row and column in Excel by changing the number format of cell. It comes especially handy when you are trying to show someone else your Excel spreadsheet.

When it comes to highlighting current row and column in Excel, many would have suggested using VBA. However, some of the Excel beginners might find it too demanding and refuse to learn VBA. Here I will provide you with an alternative.

You will be able to highlight current row and column in Excel without using VBA. All you need is a neat formula.

If you have the following questions, I suggest you reading this until the end.

• How to create spotlight effect in Excel?
• How to highlight current column and row in Excel?
• How to highlight active cell in Excel?

Example

In the above example, the active cell is D5.

Column D and row 5 are highlighted in yellow.

What we would like to do

To highlight current row and column

You might also be interested in How to prevent duplicate entries in Excel?

Highlight current row and column in Excel by changing the number format

Step 1: Select the area to be highlighted

Make sure you only select the cell area that is necessary. Selection of extra area may lead to extra calculation effort, thus slowing your Excel file.

Step 2: Select Conditional Formatting>Highlight Cell Rules> More Rules

Usually the Highlight Cells Rules would have satisfied our need for conditional formatting. Yet this time we need something more dynamic and flexible.

Instead of selecting the normal rules, we are going to create rules of our own.

That’s why we need to select “More Rules”.

Step 3: Select “Use a formula to determine which cells to format”

I am aware that many of you do not have the experience of creating formula inside conditional formatting rules.

Don’t panic. We will do it together.

Step 4: Enter this formula in the “Format values where this formula is true” field and press “Format”

=OR(CELL("row")=ROW(),CELL("col")=COLUMN())

You might also be interested in Black-Scholes Option Pricing (Excel formula)

Step 5: Choose a style you like and press OK

I prefer the highlighted cell to have a yellow background so I can see it clearly.

Step 6: Press OK

Step 7: Press F9

F9 is the shortcut of calculating all worksheets in all open workbooks.

Whenever you want the row and column of the active cell to be highlighted, you have to press F9.

The best part of this method is that it doesn’t require VBA. It doesn’t require you to modify the formula either.

Anyone who follows the step can do this.

You might also be interested in 5 Types of Graphs to Create with REPT function

Hungry for more useful Excel tips like this? Subscribe to our newsletter to make sure you won’t miss out on any of our posts and get exclusive Excel tips!

Make it easier to see your current cell in an Excel workbook by dynamically highlighting the selected row, column, cell or headings. Here’s obvious and more subtle highlighting options plus the downside of highlighting, real world tips and debugging tricks if you’re having trouble.

There are many different variations on this method; two colors, headings only, cell only etc.  We’ll also explain the workings so you can change the highlighting to suit yourself.

Large Excel tables can be hard to navigate and ensure you’ve selected the right cell.  That’s especially important when you’re filling in the table gradually and in a random order – choosing the right cell is important.

We used this trick for a Trivia Quiz worksheet. Managing the scores with all the noise and confusion of an event can be difficult.  This highlighting trick makes entering team scores more reliable.

Any modern Excel for Windows or Mac can do this.  The Cell() function is essential and was introduced in Excel 2007 for Windows and Excel 2011 for Mac.

Before we start, a little warning. This trick has several steps and can be frustrating at first.  Once you get it working, it’s great but that first try can drive you a little crazy. We’ve included some debugging tricks below.

Dynamic highlighting by selection has two ingredients.  Conditional formatting which uses the selected cell location as a condition plus a little VBA to make Excel do some extra work.

The magic ingredient – SelectionChange

The main trick is to make Excel recalculate the worksheet whenever you switch to another cell. Normally, Excel only recalculates when there’s a change in a cell or data refresh.

To do that, use a little VBA code to do something each time the selection changes.  Excel has an in-built event for this called Worksheet_SelectionChange all we have to do is give that event something to do.

This code goes into each worksheet that you want it to work in.

Private Sub Worksheet_SelectionChange(ByVal Target As Range)
   If Application.CutCopyMode = False Then
      Application.Calculate
   End If
End Sub

The code invokes the SelectionChange event then forces Excel to recalculate the worksheet.  We don’t want that to happen when we’re cut/copy/pasting so the IF statement stops that.

This little chunk of code has other uses, as you’ll see in the Headings of a selected cell option below.

Downside of forcing calculation

Forcing Excel to recalculate the worksheet for every cell movement will slow down the entire workbook.  That’s true but probably not noticeable except for really large or complex worksheets.  Modern Excel is pretty smart about figuring which cells to re-calc when a manual Calculate is done.

Give the highlighting a try, if it becomes a problem, just remove the VBA code or comment out the Application.Calculate line.

The workbook will have to be saved in a macro-enabled .XLSM format which can be an issue in some organizations.

The Conditional Formatting sauce

We’ve talked about Excel Conditional Formatting many times before. Usually it’s to change the look of a cell based on the value in that cell.

This time we’ll get sneaky.  We’ll give Conditional Formatting a little formula that compares the currently selected cell location (row and column) with the cell to be formatted.  If the cell is in the same row or column as the cell you’ve clicked in, the Conditional Formatting will be done.   It’s an extension of an Office Watch trick from 2015 applying conditional formatting to other cells.

You can just copy/paste the formula below but if you understand how it works, it opens up a lot more possibilities.  The alternatives we’ll look at below are mostly about changing this formula:

=OR(CELL("col")=COLUMN(),CELL("row")=ROW())

It’s not that scary, let’s break it down:

CELL("col")=COLUMN()

Compares the column number of selected cell CELL(“col”) with the column of the cell to be formatted COLUMN(), if they’re the same the result is TRUE

CELL("row")=ROW()

Compares the row number of selected cell CELL(“row”)  with the row number of the cell to be formatted ROW(), if they’re the same the result is TRUE

Each of those tests returns a TRUE or FALSE, we want the formatting to apply when either case is True so both tests are wrapped in the OR function.

(that’s why the VBA code is necessary, to make Excel recalculate the CELL() functions each time the selection changes).

Highlight selected row and column

Now let’s put all this together to make the row and column highlighting from the first image in this article.  If you’re trying this for the first time, try this example first because it’s the basis for all the later variations.  Get this one working and the rest will be a doddle.

Select the entire grid or table then Home | Conditional Formatting | New Rule.

Choose ‘Use a formula to determine which cells to format’.

Paste in the formula detailed above:

=OR(CELL("col")=COLUMN(),CELL("row")=ROW())

Then click Format to select the look you want.  The Fill tab changes the cell background color.

Border is also available to change the edges of the cell, there’s an example of that below.

Highlight row & column with different colors

Maybe you’d prefer the row and column to have different colors or formatting.

That’s just a variation with two conditional formatting rules, one for rows, the other for columns.

Both rules apply to the same range, grid or table.

Above we explained how the condition formula works, here are the two conditions:

=CELL("col")=COLUMN()

=CELL("row")=ROW()

As you can see, it’s the two tests without the OR() test to combine them.

Real World tip

It’s likely that you or users of the worksheet will ask for changes to the dynamic highlighting.  Maybe a change of color or highlighting just rows etc.  To make future changes easier, we suggest always setting two conditional formats (one for rows, one for columns). Even if both use the same formatting as in this example.

If the user/client wants a change, all you have to do is alter the formatting. For example, for row highlighting only, just clear the formatting options for the =Cell(“col”) … line.

Don’t delete the conditional formatting rule, you may need it again later!

More subtle, less obtrusive formatting

The above column and row formatting options are commonly demonstrated because they are obvious and showy.  In many situations something more subtle is better.

Highlight the selected row or column only

The formatting for row and columns, shown above, is also the way to highlight just a row or column.

Use either the row or column conditional formatting.

(we left the column conditional formatting in case we change our mind.)

The formatting is a two-tone gradient available at Format | Fill | Fill Effects | Two colors

You might think the full colored lines are too much, how about highlighting just the row & column headings (Row 1 and Column A).

Change the ‘Applies to… ‘ to just the first row  ($A$1:$I$1) or column ($A$1:$A$13).

The above example has few extra tricks, because we can’t help ourselves and have little fits of enthusiasm.

On the right side you’ll see Totals and Rank columns with top/bottom border edge formatting, just to show that alternative. That’s one of the options available on the Format Cells | Border tab.

Instead of color fill, try horizontal and vertical borders to show the selected row/ column.

The conditional format only applies to those two columns.

The second trick is below the table and deserves an article of its own.  It’s a summary of the selected student (row) that changes according to the cell you’re in.

It’s an example of what’s possible once Excel is recalculating for each selection change. You can make more responsive and informative worksheets.

Do it with the INDIRECT() function which gets the value of another cell.

=INDIRECT(ADDRESS(CELL("row"),1))

Plus our old friend Cell() to get the selected cells row or column position.

Highlight just the selected cell

Even more subtle is highlighting just the selected cell. Excel does that automatically with a border around the selection but you can do more than that with conditional formatting. Here the selected cell is bold with yellow fill.

Do it with a simple variation on the very first formula at the start of this article.

=AND(CELL("col")=COLUMN(),CELL("row")=ROW())

Instead of OR() use AND() … meaning that both conditions have to be TRUE.

Debugging Tips

Doesn’t work for you?  Try these suggestions to narrow down the problem.

Is the VBA working?

Make sure the VBA code is working by adding a message box to the function eg:

      Application.Calculate
      MsgBox ("You got me")

If the function is working in the workbook then every cell selection will bring up a message.

If the message isn’t appearing then you know the function isn’t working.  Most likely the code is not in the correct worksheet.

Applies to

Check the Applies to conditional formatting and that you’re looking at the right part of the workbook.

Show formatting rules for:  make sure it’s This worksheet or This Table.

Applies to: check the correct range is selected.

Fast Fill Sequential lists or rows in Excel
Excel Conditional Formatting, beyond the pre-sets
Text and formatting tricks for Excel
Justify, Fill, Orientation, Shrink to Fit and other Excel formatting tricks.

It is common to lose your way in a big table of data. Even though Excel’s freezing features help you to display selected row and column’s primary data, no feature can beat highlighting to express the selected data. In this guide, we’re going to show you how to highlight selected row and column in Excel.

Download Workbook

Dynamic highlighting in Excel can be done by Conditional Formatting with ease. If you are not familiar with the conditional formatting, it is feature that allows you to change cells formatting based on a formula or value of cells.

You can apply the formatting into an entire row or column. However, Excel doesn’t have a built-in function that returns the address of a selected cell. Thanks to VBA, we are not out of options. You can send the selected cell’s row and column information to cells or named ranges by four-row code that you can either type or copy-paste. Follow the steps to highlight selected row and column in Excel.

1. Named ranges

Start by creating 2 named ranges. Named ranges allows you a simple formula writing and reading both in the worksheet and VBA Editor. Just select a cell and give a friendly name which refers the selected row. For example, «SelectedRow».

All you need to do is to select a cell and type desired name into the reference box near the formula bar. You can learn more about ways of creating named ranges in 5 Ways to Create an Excel Named Range article.

Create a named range for selected column as well, e.g., «SelectedCol».

2. VBA

Open VBA window by pressing Alt + F11 key combination. You can click Visual Basic icon under Development tab as well.

1. Once VBA window is open, double click on the worksheet including the data you want to highlight. This action opens the worksheet’s editor at the right side.
2. Select Worksheet item in the drop down at the left. This step will add Worksheet_SelectionChange event to your editor.
   
3. The code under Worksheet_SelectionChange event is evaluated whenever the user selects a different cell. Either write or copy paste the following code block between «Private Sub …» and «End Sub» lines.
   [SelectedRow] = Target.Row
   [SelectedCol] = Target.Column
   

As you can figure out quickly the names between brackets refer the named ranges you created at the first step. Thus, feel free to replace them if you named your cells differently. You can learn more about how you can refer a cell or range in VBA in How to refer a range or a cell in Excel VBA.

Once the code is ready, you can close the VBA window. You can see the effect directly in your worksheet. The cells you named will show the selected cell’s row and column numbers whenever you select a cell.

3. Conditional formatting

Since we know the selected cell’s coordinates, it is easy to set a conditional formatting rule.

1. Select the data you want to highlight.
2. Open conditional formatting window by clicking Home > Styles > Conditional Formatting > New Rule.
   
3. Select Use a formula to determine which cells to format rule.
4. Type the formula which checks if the row of the cell in the data is equal the value in the «SelectedRow» cell. The reference in the ROW function should be the top-left cell of the data and a relative reference. Thus, no $ signs in the reference. Otherwise, the rule will be applied to that cell only.
   =ROW(B5)=SelectedRow
5. Select the desired highlight color in the dialog you can reach by Format
6. Click OK to save the rule.
   
7. You can see the effect directly.
   
8. Add another rule for the column. This time the formula should be like this:
   =COLUMN(B5)=SelectedCol
   

That’s the way of highlighting selected row and column in Excel with help of VBA.

This post will guide you how to highlight the active row and column in Excel. How do I highlight row and column of active cell with Excel VBA Macro. How to highlight the active row or column when a cell is selected.

---

When you select one cell and you want the row and column in the active cell to auto-highlight. How to achieve it. You should be write a VBA Macro or user defined function to achieve the result. Just do the following steps:

#1 right click on the sheet tab, and select view code from the popup menu list. And the Visual Basic For Application dialog will open.

#2 type the following VBA Macro into the code window. And save and close the VBA window.

Private Sub Worksheet_SelectionChange(ByVal Target As Range)
    On Error Resume Next
    Application.ScreenUpdating = False
    ' Clear the color of all the cells
    Cells.Interior.ColorIndex = 0
    If Target.Cells.Count > 1 Then Exit Sub
    With Target
        ' Highlight the entire row and column that contain the active cell
        .EntireRow.Interior.ColorIndex = 6
        .EntireColumn.Interior.ColorIndex = 6
    End With
    Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

#3 select one cell, the entire row and column of active Cell are auto-highlighted.

Auto Highlight Active Cell

---

If you want only to highlight the active cell, you can use the following VBA Macro:

Private Sub Worksheet_SelectionChange(ByVal Target As Range)
    Application.ScreenUpdating = False
    ' Clear the color of all the cells
    Cells.Interior.ColorIndex = 0
    ' Highlight the active cell
    Target.Interior.ColorIndex = 6
    Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

Auto Highlight Row and Column within the Current Region

---

If you want to highlight only the row and column within the current region in worksheet, you can use the following VBA Macro:

Private Sub Worksheet_SelectionChange(ByVal Target As Range)
    On Error Resume Next
    ' Clear the color of all the cells
    Cells.Interior.ColorIndex = 0
    If IsEmpty(Target) Or Target.Cells.Count > 1 Then Exit Sub
    Application.ScreenUpdating = False
    With ActiveCell
        ' Highlight the row and column within the current region
        Range(Cells(.Row, .CurrentRegion.Column), Cells(.Row, .CurrentRegion.Columns.Count + .CurrentRegion.Column - 1)).Interior.ColorIndex = 6
        Range(Cells(.CurrentRegion.Row, .Column), Cells(.CurrentRegion.Rows.Count + .CurrentRegion.Row - 1, .Column)).Interior.ColorIndex = 6
    End With
    Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

Auto Highlight Row and Column with Double-click Cell

---

If you want to auto-highlight row and column when you double click a cell, you can use the following VBA macro:

Private Sub Worksheet_BeforeDoubleClick(ByVal Target As Range, Cancel As Boolean)
'Step 1:  Declare Variables
    Dim strRange As String
'Step2:  Build the range string
    strRange = Target.Cells.Address & "," & _
               Target.Cells.EntireColumn.Address & "," & _
               Target.Cells.EntireRow.Address
'Step 3: Pass the range string to a Range
    Range(strRange).Select
End Sub