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MS Excel: Making the selected cell stand out more?

posted by [personal profile] janetmiles at 12:51pm on 13/09/2012
I was asked yesterday if there was any way in Excel to make the selected cell stand out more -- something more than just the heavy border around the cell, especially when there are already cell borders which may mask that.

The question arose in relation to finding the selected cell when someone searches for information in a spreadsheet.

I thought there might be something in accessibility, but I don't see anything helpful.

The only thing I can think, if the person is using 2007 or 2010 with the ribbon, would be to do the search and click one of the "cell formatting" options in the ribbon to make the cell stand out, then do ctrl-z to undo the formatting. That doesn't seem like a really good workaround, though.

Any ideas?

(crossposted to various places, including my own LJ, my Facebook, and my IAAP chapter listserv)
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There are 13 comments on this entry. (Reply.)
 

(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] xiphias.livejournal.com at 04:59pm on 13/09/2012
Is there some option in Cell Format Font for adjusting the color of the font? Might that help? I just tried on my old, outdated version, and, in that, I could alternate-click on the cell, Format Cells..., and then choose colors on Font and Fill.

Can you still that, and would that work?
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posted by [identity profile] janetmiles.livejournal.com at 05:47pm on 13/09/2012
That does work, but I was hoping for some setting that would cause the selected cell to default to some more visible format.
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posted by [identity profile] carlyinrome.livejournal.com at 05:14pm on 13/09/2012

Couldn't you just "highlight" the cell by changing the background color of the cell to yellow (or whatever color you prefer)?

Image

I'm not entirely sure how that would translate to the ribbon, though.

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seawasp: (Poisonous&Venomous)

(no subject)

posted by [personal profile] seawasp at 05:29pm on 13/09/2012
You can color each individual cell to different colors, or change the font. I'm not sure if that will help you.
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posted by [identity profile] janetmiles.livejournal.com at 05:47pm on 13/09/2012
That does work, but I was hoping for some setting that would cause the selected cell to default to some more visible format.
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(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] janetmiles.livejournal.com at 05:47pm on 13/09/2012
That does work, but I was hoping for some setting that would cause the selected cell to default to some more visible format.
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posted by [identity profile] catsittingstill.livejournal.com at 07:26pm on 13/09/2012
By "more visible format" you seem to mean something more than "make this cell stand out from the others" because yellow highlighting would do that just fine.

Do you want the cell to contain bolder font? A larger font? A less busy font?
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posted by [identity profile] janetmiles.livejournal.com at 07:38pm on 13/09/2012
I think I'm explaining it wrong.

I don't want to make *a specific cell* more visible. I want to make *whatever cell the cursor is in* more visible, and to have that visibility follow the cursor from cell to cell around the worksheet.

Is that different from what I was asking before?

I think [livejournal.com profile] rahirah's answer below is what I'm looking for (although it's probably too advanced for the user who contacted us).
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posted by [identity profile] catsittingstill.livejournal.com at 10:31pm on 13/09/2012
OH. Perhaps it's not that it's different from what you said before, but that I now *understand* what you said before. I had the impression you wanted to select a cell, make it more visible, and move on, leaving the highly visible cell still highly visible while you selected other cells. My bad.

I'm sorry; I have no idea how to do what you have in mind.. :-(
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rahirah: (Default)

(no subject)

posted by [personal profile] rahirah at 06:23pm on 13/09/2012
Looks like you need VBA code to do this. Here is a link with an example:

http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/change-format-active-cell-t4038481.html

And another:

http://www.msofficegurus.com/post/Excel-Highlight-the-Active-Cell.aspx
Edited Date: 2012-09-13 06:24 pm (UTC)
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posted by [identity profile] janetmiles.livejournal.com at 07:50pm on 13/09/2012
This appears to be what I'm looking for. I'm not sure it's helpful to the user who contacted us, but it does solve the problem.

Thanks!
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posted by [identity profile] akcipitrokulo.livejournal.com at 12:20pm on 14/09/2012
Use conditional formatting on all cells that will change the formatting to something noticable (font, bold, colour, etc) if it is equal to the value in another cell: have this one (near the top, above a freeze if present) marked as the "search" cell.
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(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] akcipitrokulo.livejournal.com at 12:21pm on 14/09/2012
Ah - misunderstood what you were asking, sorry!
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