How to highlight a selected cell's row, column, or both in Excel?
In a large worksheet, it can be challenging to keep track of your selected cell, especially when scrolling through extensive data. Highlighting the entire row, column, or both of a selected cell can make it much easier to read and navigate your data. This guide will demonstrate how to achieve this using two methods: Conditional Formatting and the handy Kutools for Excel add-in. These approaches will automatically update the highlighted row and column as you select different cells.
Highlight the row / column / column and row of selected cell with Conditional Formatting
Highlight the row / column / column and row of selected cell with Kutools for Excel
Highlight the row / column / column and row of selected cell with Conditional Formatting
In fact, Conditional Formatting is a powerful feature that can help you highlight the entire row, column, or both the row and column of the active cell. The highlights automatically adjust as the active cell changes. Follow these steps to use it effectively:
1. Go to the worksheet you want to use and click cell A1. Then, select the entire worksheet by clicking the triangle at the intersection of the row and column headers. See the screenshot:
2. Click Home > Conditional Formatting > New Rule to open the New Formatting Rule dialog box. In the dialog box that appears, select the Use a formula to determine which cells to format option, and enter this formula: =OR(CELL("col")=CELL("col",A1),CELL("row")=CELL("row",A1)) into the Format values where this formula is true text box. See the screenshot:
Tips: To highlight only the entire row of the selected cell, use this formula: =ROW()=CELL("row"). To highlight only the entire column of the selected cell, use this formula: =COLUMN()=CELL("col").
3. Go on clicking the Format button. And in the Format Cells dialog box, please specify a color for highlighting the row and column of the active cell under the Fill tab. See screenshot:
4. Click OK > OK to close the dialogs. Now, you can see that the entire row and column of the selected cell (A1) are highlighted at once. You can click any other cell and press the F9 key to update the highlight for the selected cell's entire row and column. See the screenshot:
Highlight the row / column / column and row of selected cell with Kutools for Excel
If the Conditional Formatting method feels too complicated, I recommend using a handy tool - Kutools for Excel. Its Reading Layout feature allows you to highlight the row, column, or both the row and column of the selected cell with just one click.
1. Select a cell for which you want to highlight the row and column. Then, click Kutools > Reading Layout. The row and column of the selected cell will be highlighted. When you click another cell or a range of cells, the row and column of the new selection will be highlighted automatically. See the screenshot:
Notes:
1. You can open the Reading Layout Settings dialog box to set the highlighted color, shapes, and styles as needed.
2. To cancel the highlighting, simply click Kutools > Reading Layout again to disable the automatic shading.
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Demo: Highlight the row / column / column and row of selected cell with Kutools for Excel
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