This post will guide you how to highlight the active row and column in Excel. How do I highlight row and column of active cell with Excel VBA Macro. How to highlight the active row or column when a cell is selected.

Auto Highlight Row or Column of Active Cell

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When you select one cell and you want the row and column in the active cell to auto-highlight. How to achieve it. You should be write a VBA Macro or user defined function to achieve the result. Just do the following steps:

#1 right click on the sheet tab, and select view code from the popup menu list. And the Visual Basic For Application dialog will open.

#2 type the following VBA Macro into the code window. And save and close the VBA window.

Private Sub Worksheet_SelectionChange(ByVal Target As Range)
    On Error Resume Next
    Application.ScreenUpdating = False
    ' Clear the color of all the cells
    Cells.Interior.ColorIndex = 0
    If Target.Cells.Count > 1 Then Exit Sub
    With Target
        ' Highlight the entire row and column that contain the active cell
        .EntireRow.Interior.ColorIndex = 6
        .EntireColumn.Interior.ColorIndex = 6
    End With
    Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

#3 select one cell, the entire row and column of active Cell are auto-highlighted.

Auto Highlight Active Cell

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If you want only to highlight the active cell, you can use the following VBA Macro:

Private Sub Worksheet_SelectionChange(ByVal Target As Range)
    Application.ScreenUpdating = False
    ' Clear the color of all the cells
    Cells.Interior.ColorIndex = 0
    ' Highlight the active cell
    Target.Interior.ColorIndex = 6
    Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

Auto Highlight Row and Column within the Current Region

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If you want to highlight only the row and column within the current region in worksheet, you can use the following VBA Macro:

Private Sub Worksheet_SelectionChange(ByVal Target As Range)
    On Error Resume Next
    ' Clear the color of all the cells
    Cells.Interior.ColorIndex = 0
    If IsEmpty(Target) Or Target.Cells.Count > 1 Then Exit Sub
    Application.ScreenUpdating = False
    With ActiveCell
        ' Highlight the row and column within the current region
        Range(Cells(.Row, .CurrentRegion.Column), Cells(.Row, .CurrentRegion.Columns.Count + .CurrentRegion.Column - 1)).Interior.ColorIndex = 6
        Range(Cells(.CurrentRegion.Row, .Column), Cells(.CurrentRegion.Rows.Count + .CurrentRegion.Row - 1, .Column)).Interior.ColorIndex = 6
    End With
    Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

Auto Highlight Row and Column with Double-click Cell

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If you want to auto-highlight row and column when you double click a cell, you can use the following VBA macro:

Private Sub Worksheet_BeforeDoubleClick(ByVal Target As Range, Cancel As Boolean)
'Step 1:  Declare Variables
    Dim strRange As String
'Step2:  Build the range string
    strRange = Target.Cells.Address & "," & _
               Target.Cells.EntireColumn.Address & "," & _
               Target.Cells.EntireRow.Address
'Step 3: Pass the range string to a Range
    Range(strRange).Select
End Sub