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How to highlight active cell or selection in Excel?

Author Xiaoyang Last modified

If you have a large worksheet, maybe it is hard for you to find out the active cell or active selection at a glance. But, if the active cell/section has an outstanding color, to find out it will not be a problem. In this article, I will talk about how to automatically highlight the active cell or selected range of cells in Excel.

Highlight active cell or selection with VBA code

Highlight active cell or selection with VBA code

The following VBA code can help you to highlight the active cell or a selection dynamically, please do as follows:

1. Hold down the ALT + F11 keys to open the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window.

2. Then choose ThisWorkbook from the left Project Explorer, double click it to open the Module, and then copy and paste following VBA code into the blank Module:

VBA code: Highlight active cell or selection

Sub Workbook_SheetSelectionChange(ByVal Sh As Object, ByVal Target As Excel.Range)
'Update 20140923
Static xLastRng As Range
On Error Resume Next
Target.Interior.ColorIndex = 6
xLastRng.Interior.ColorIndex = xlColorIndexNone
Set xLastRng = Target
End Sub

a screenshot showing how to use the VBA code

3. Then save and close this code, and go back to the worksheet, now, when you select a cell or a selection, the selected cells will be highlighted, and it will be dynamically moved as the selected cells changes.

Notes:

1. If you cannot find the Project Explorer Pane in the window, you can click View > Project Explorer in the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window to open it.

2. In the above code, you can change .ColorIndex = 6 color to other color you like.

3. This VBA code can be applied to all worksheets within the workbook.

4. If there are some colored cells in your worksheet, the color will be lost when you click the cell and then move to other cell.

Related article:

How to auto-highlight row and column of active cell in Excel?

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