Cell highlight not working

[Rhodan1970]

Hi everyone,

You are my last resort as this is driving me nuts. I'm running Excel 2016 on Windows 7 and every so often for reasons I cannot determine the active cell highly outline disappears. Issue occurs across numerous workbooks , I cannot detect rhyme or reason to what may trigger this.

Issue occurs when trying to select individual cells, but also when selecting an entire row. I'm the latter scenario I am not only missing the active cell/range highline outline, but the change of background color which normally occurs in a selected range also does not take place.

I can see the active cell change in the top left when randomly clicking but no more highlight.

Does anyone have a solution for this?

 

[starl]

I've read various reports on this, but there doesn't seem to be a firm solution/explanation.
Pressing ESC several times seems to help some.
Another article mentioned that the active window could be losing focus. Since Excel is now Single Document Interface, that can easily happen and you might not know.
Do you have another workbook open when that happens? What happens if you press a key on your keyboard? Does it put that value in the active cell (even if you can't see it?)

oh - try scrolling, too. I've had some weird things happen with workbooks and scrolling or minimizing/maximizing the window seems to the get the display to update properly. I wonder if it's a video driver issue....

 

[tonyyy]

Rhodan1970,

Too interesting. Just a week ago, @twl2009 was looking for a way to hide the selected cell's highlight/border. Too bad you can't swap issues.

Anyway, the only times I've experienced disappearing highlights have been when displaying multiple sheets and executing a selection change event macro that scrolls the adjacent sheet. Alas, Tracy's suggestion - scrolling or minimizing/maximizing the window - is all that worked for me.

Good luck!

tonyyy

 

[Alien Visitor]

Hi
I have the same kind of problem. When moving the active cell using the arrow keys it will suddenly 'disappear' (i.e. one can no longer tell which cell is 'active'). In order to continue working I have to click on a cell with the mouse, whereupon that cell becomes the outlined active cell. All this is in Office 365, fully updated).
It seriously slows down my work and is a real nuisance. If anyone can offer a solution, I'd be incredibly grateful.
Alien

 

[xlsxer]

This worked for me: Save and close the file, then reopen the file.

 

[cookeetree]

This worked for me: Save and close the file, then reopen the file.

I just had the same problem as OP and this "fix" worked. Thanks!

 

[chirag85]

i have been facing problem in making outer border cell highlighted every time i click “enter key”. Example: A1= B1xC1xD1. When cursor is on cell A1 or when click on A1, So by fault A1 cell border appears “green color” along with associated cell B1,C1,D1 seems to be different color border cell.(B1-blue, C1-red,D1-purple). But it cannot work with A2=B2xC2xD2 formula. Meaning when i click “Enter Key” when cursor on A1 cell then it do not appear any color for next Cell that is for A2 cell and so for B2,C2,D2. Which i mean A2 cell dont active part while “enter key” pressed. So can anyone suggest me how to make next row’s same column cell active ? Much thankful if i got solution.

 

[JamesDandy]

This happens to me sometimes when there is a problem with a copy/paste operation. Excel issues me a warning that something went wrong but the paste should still work. It's a silly message, but it often results in a situation where I can no longer see the outline of a cell or a selection.

Closing the document and opening again is a fix, but I have found that if you use the "New Window" command from the "View" menu you can get your cell selection indicator back. The original window may still be messed up, but you can just close that one and move on and you don't have to wait to save/exit/restart Excel.

 

[dmon_21]

Hi there,

I just had this problem, too. Super annoying for workflow. I was working in Page Layout View. When I switched to Normal View (View>Normal), I was able to see the cell highlighted. Hope this helps.

DD