Forum Discussion
mikesail
Jul 04, 2025Copper Contributor
Using Excel fine I want to highlight the text in a cell
Hello, I often use Excel Find to look for text. What I would like to do is have Excel highlight the text in the cell after the text is found. Currently Excel will just go to the cell. Is thi...
NikolinoDE
Jul 07, 2025Platinum Contributor
Excel does not natively support highlighting only part of the text in a cell (like a highlighter in Word), especially not as part of the "Find" feature.
However, with a small VBA macro, you can automatically highlight (color) the matched text within a cell after a search.
Sub FindAndHighlightText()
Dim ws As Worksheet
Dim searchText As String
Dim cell As Range
Dim startPos As Long
Set ws = ActiveSheet
searchText = InputBox("Enter the text to find and highlight:")
If searchText = "" Then Exit Sub
For Each cell In ws.UsedRange
If InStr(1, cell.Value, searchText, vbTextCompare) > 0 Then
startPos = InStr(1, cell.Value, searchText, vbTextCompare)
cell.Characters(startPos, Len(searchText)).Font.Color = RGB(255, 0, 0)
cell.Characters(startPos, Len(searchText)).Font.Bold = True
End If
Next cell
MsgBox "Highlighting complete!"
End SubIt only works on plain text in cells (not formulas).
It highlights the first occurrence in each cell.
My answer is without guarantee
Maybe this will help you a little