Microsoft introduces Focus Cell in Excel, which makes sheets more visible to users

You’ll no longer feel lost in a sea of hundreds of cells.

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Published onOctober 10, 2024

published onOctober 10, 2024

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Microsoft Excel is finally making sheets more visible by adding a brand-new feature called Focus Cell. This feature applies a vibrant highlight to the associated row and column of the active cell, increasing the cell’s border thickness to make it stand out more than before.

The feature can be toggled on and off by simply clicking the Focus Cell button on the View tab of Excel. Users can change the color of the highlights by clicking the arrow next to the Focus Cell button and selecting a new color.

The command can be added to the Quick Access Toolbar for quicker access. After the command is added, users can simply click the corresponding icon at the top left of the Excel window to toggle the feature.

In a blog post, Microsoft says the Focus Cell feature is available to Beta Channel users running Version 2410 (Build 18118.20000) or later, and it should be coming to the Stable Channel sometime in the following months.

The feature will also automatically activate when using Find & Replace commands in Excel for Windows, making it easier to locate the active cell as it shifts positions. This behavior can be changed by selectingView > Focus Cell > Show Auto-Highlight.

For now, however, Microsoft says Excel’s Focus Cell is not supported while Freeze Panes or Split Panes are used.

Excel for Mac and Web users will have to wait longer for the feature, as it’s not yet available for those platforms.

In other news, the Redmond-based tech giant recently updated Excel withthe TRIMRANGE and trim references, allowing users to clean spreadsheets of unnecessary columns in just a few seconds.

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Microsoft introduces Focus Cell in Excel, which makes sheets more visible to users