A new (and very clear) way to show which cell has the focus

This page has 0 threads | Add post

Blogs

Finding our blogs useful? Please consider helping us to share more!

More interesting and useful new features being introduced into Excel Part two of a five-part series of blogs
Last month we blogged in detail about the new GROUPBY and PIVOTBY functions in Excel. This month we have 4 lighter new features: focus cells, colour pickers, Draw and Hold and some new templates. More interesting and useful new features being introduced into Excel A new (and very clear) way to show which cell has the focus (this blog) Draw and hold - getting Excel to improve your artwork The new colour picker to ensure good contrast New templates for generating sample data, QR codes and Python help

More interesting and useful new features being introduced into Excel

Part two of a five-part series of blogs

Last month we blogged in detail about the new GROUPBY and PIVOTBY functions in Excel. This month we have 4 lighter new features: focus cells, colour pickers, Draw and Hold and some new templates.

More interesting and useful new features being introduced into Excel
A new (and very clear) way to show which cell has the focus (this blog)
Draw and hold - getting Excel to improve your artwork
The new colour picker to ensure good contrast
New templates for generating sample data, QR codes and Python help

Posted by Andy Brown on 06 December 2024

In this blog

Setting the focus cell
Changing the focus cell colour
Showing automatic highlighting

In the screen-shot below you're looking (perhaps unwisely?) at the film Pearl Harbor, which is in row 8 and column B:

The focus cell makes it much more obvious which cell you currently have selected.

Setting the focus cell

If you want to set a focus cell, make sure you're on the right version of Excel (as per the previous part of this blog), then choose this option:

Setting (or unsetting) the focus cell.

Changing the focus cell colour

You can if you like waste several minutes deciding on which colour you want to use:

Here we've gone for a bright red colour, although Excel seems to soften any colours chosen (perhaps a good idea).

Now Pearl Harbor's row and column appear in red:

Better? Worse? You'll probably spend the next 20 minutes trying to decide!

Showing automatic highlighting

You can tick this option to enable auto-highlighting when you're finding text:

The option to enable auto-highlighting. Note that has no effect if you also have Focus Cell turned on.

Then when you run a find for some text the focus cell feature will highlight each cell found - like this in fact:

The word Pearl occurs in cells B9 and B40 - clicking on each result will place the focus on the relevant cell.

Note that (as mentioned above) this will have no effect if you have Focus Cell turned on (so this is an alternative to this feature, not a complement to it).

Focus Cell feels like a really good new feature, particularly for those with accessibility issues, although for those resistant to change (like the author) it will take a while to get used to (and I confess that I've now turned it off, as I've never particularly struggled to locate my current cell and I find the extra colours involved confusing).

Parts of this blog
More interesting and useful new features being introduced into Excel A new (and very clear) way to show which cell has the focus (this blog) Draw and hold - getting Excel to improve your artwork The new colour picker to ensure good contrast New templates for generating sample data, QR codes and Python help