Unfortunately, it is not possible to directly highlight the active cell in Excel without using VBA (Visual Basic for Applications). VBA is a programming language used within Excel to automate tasks and modify the functionality of the application.
However, there are a few workarounds that can give the illusion of highlighting the active cell. One common method is to use conditional formatting with a formula. Here’s how you can achieve this:
- Select the range of cells where you want the highlighting to appear. This could be the entire worksheet or a specific range.
- Go to the “Home” tab in the Excel ribbon, click on “Conditional Formatting,” and select “New Rule.”
- In the “New Formatting Rule” dialog box, select “Use a formula to determine which cells to format.”
- In the “Format values where this formula is true” field, enter a formula that checks if the current cell reference matches the active cell reference. For example, if you want to highlight cell A1 when it is active, you can use the formula
=CELL("address")="$A$1". - Click on the “Format” button and choose the desired formatting options, such as background color, border, or font color.
- Click “OK” in all the dialog boxes to apply the conditional formatting.
Now, when you activate cell A1, it will appear highlighted based on the conditional formatting rule you created. However, please note that this method only simulates highlighting and does not actually change the appearance of the active cell in Excel.