When I am working with Excel 2010, I try to select a single cell however multiple cells get highlighted. It will highlight usually the next 5-6 cells in the same row. It occurs randomly on random cells, but happens about 25% of the time. If I click the cell and it does its highlighting thing, I usually have to click away in another cell and then re-click the first one to get it to go away. Also, if I just try to ignore the highlighted cells and try to work as normal, when I try to tab to the next cell in the row, it will only let me tab between the cells in the column that are highlighted. It is not a mouse problem, I am not accidentally selecting multiple cells, and it happens on documents I created as well as documents others have created. It will also happens on a new, blank document or others completely stripped of any kind of potentially hidden formatting. I have not tried to re-install Office yet, but that will be next step if no one has a solution. Thanks

Sounds like the Extended Selection feature which is toggled on/off by pressing the F8 key.
'---
Jim Cone
Portland, Oregon USA
http://www.contextures.com/excel-sort-addin.html
(30 + ways to sort)

• Marked as answer by Sally Tang Thursday, December 02, 2010 5:33 AM

Sounds like the Extended Selection feature which is toggled on/off by pressing the F8 key.
'---
Jim Cone
Portland, Oregon USA
http://www.contextures.com/excel-sort-addin.html
(30 + ways to sort)

• Marked as answer by Sally Tang Thursday, December 02, 2010 5:33 AM

This issue is already being discussed in another thread:

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/excslcreate/thread/e77e5d4b-ff27-4bd2-9538-842e01a53497

I would suggest we stick to that thread.

This issue is already being discussed in another thread:

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/excslcreate/thread/e77e5d4b-ff27-4bd2-9538-842e01a53497

I would suggest we stick to that thread.

That forwards to another site.

 

A user of mine had this problem on 2007. 

It would select 2 cells in the same column.

I emailed the excel doc to myself and a co-worker.  It only selects one cell on my excel 2010.
It selects 2 cells in the same row on my co-workers excel 2010.

Changing the view zoom to something other than 100% solves the problem.  Changing it back to 100% brings the problem back.

This seems to be a bug.

• Proposed as answer by Redshfit Interactive Thursday, October 18, 2012 12:32 AM

This issue is already being discussed in another thread:

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/excslcreate/thread/e77e5d4b-ff27-4bd2-9538-842e01a53497

I would suggest we stick to that thread.

That forwards to another site.

 

A user of mine had this problem on 2007. 

It would select 2 cells in the same column.

I emailed the excel doc to myself and a co-worker.  It only selects one cell on my excel 2010.
It selects 2 cells in the same row on my co-workers excel 2010.

Changing the view zoom to something other than 100% solves the problem.  Changing it back to 100% brings the problem back.

This seems to be a bug.

• Proposed as answer by Redshfit Interactive Thursday, October 18, 2012 12:32 AM

I just want to thank the person who wrote about this issue and the person(s) that had the answer. It's been driving me crazy, but the F8 toggle did the trick!

The F8 toggle doesn't always work.  This is a bug with Excel and Microsoft is aware of it but doesn't seem to know how to fix it.

Doesn't work for mine either (2010). Tried the f8, same results... Any updates on this yet???

I am having the same problem in MS Excel 2007 and F8 does not solve it.

I

I first came across this problem today and it would appear that the only other potential fix is to use the zoom feature in the bottom rhs of the screen and zoom out and then back in to your original size and this seems to cure the problem.  It may reoccur but repeating this process will remedy the problem again.  Very frustrating but atleast the limited fix is not to longwinded.

Good luck.

• Proposed as answer by Ade Tamworth Thursday, May 31, 2012 1:52 PM

I

I first came across this problem today and it would appear that the only other potential fix is to use the zoom feature in the bottom rhs of the screen and zoom out and then back in to your original size and this seems to cure the problem.  It may reoccur but repeating this process will remedy the problem again.  Very frustrating but atleast the limited fix is not to longwinded.

Good luck.

• Proposed as answer by Ade Tamworth Thursday, May 31, 2012 1:52 PM

I was having the same trouble. I switched from Normal View to Page and then to Print view and back to Normal. That seemed to work because the f8 was not. I'm using 2010. 

Good Luck!

• Proposed as answer by weaver007 7 hours 26 minutes ago

I was having the same trouble. I switched from Normal View to Page and then to Print view and back to Normal. That seemed to work because the f8 was not. I'm using 2010. 

Good Luck!

• Proposed as answer by weaver007 Sunday, April 26, 2015 12:01 AM

I was having the same trouble. I switched from Normal View to Page and then to Print view and back to Normal. That seemed to work because the f8 was not. I'm using 2010. 

Good Luck!

• Proposed as answer by weaver007 Sunday, April 26, 2015 12:01 AM

I never had this problem before, but I got a new HP EliteBook and now I have this happen all the time.  It seems to happen when I scroll to a part of the sheet that was previously off-screen.  Zooming seems to fix it for now

I have this same issue.  I get around it by changing the zoom level to anything that is NOT 100%.  F8 has nothing to do with it.

F8 did not help me at all. It only made the two highlighted cells go to 6 cells. Making it anything other than 100% zoom is what did work. And I thank the people who suggested that!! I made it a custom 105%. Whew! That was driving me crazy.

• Proposed as answer by laufenba Thursday, December 20, 2012 3:26 PM
• Unproposed as answer by laufenba Thursday, December 20, 2012 3:26 PM

F8 did not help me at all. It only made the two highlighted cells go to 6 cells. Making it anything other than 100% zoom is what did work. And I thank the people who suggested that!! I made it a custom 105%. Whew! That was driving me crazy.

• Proposed as answer by laufenba Thursday, December 20, 2012 3:26 PM
• Unproposed as answer by laufenba Thursday, December 20, 2012 3:26 PM

I've been dealing with this also.  The only thing I've found is that there is a correlation when I added headers/footers to my worksheet.  As soon as I do that I started getting random multiple cells being highlighted.  When I remove the headers/footers it goes away.  I see in other replys that decreasing the zoom seems to help some people with this issue.  Maybe when adding headers/footers has something to do with the zoom feature also, but I would definitely give this a try and see what happens.  It is just annoying anyway you look at it. 

I've been getting the same random problem in 2010 - but this last message struck a chord with me because I just added a header and it started occurring again!

Microsoft take note that this is the way to reproduce it.

I have been experiencing the same problem, but I seem to have figured out the method to the madness. If you click in the direct center or at the right of the cell box, it will select the adjacent box as well. But, if you click to the left of the cell, it will only select the one box. 

Hope this helps. 

I ran into this problem today working in Excel 2010 at 90% zoom.

First I tried F8 and Shift+F8 but neither of them worked.

Next I changed the zoom levels up and down and this worked while I was at a different zoom level than the document was saved in but went back to the same problem when I tried working at 90% zoom again.

Finally I came across the fix mentioned below from July 2, 2012 that suggested switching from Normal View to Page and then to Print view and back to Normal and this worked!!! Thanks to all for your input below, you saved my Monday morning!

LIST OF POSSIBLE FIXES:

1. Try using the F8 and/or Shift+F8 [extend selection] to toggle back and forth.

2. Change zoom level of your document up or down [this was only a temporary fix for me].

3. Change page layout between Normal, Page Layout, and Page Break Preview (the 3 boxes at the bottom right hand corner of excel spreadsheet) then back to Normal.

• Proposed as answer by Squintz221 Monday, September 09, 2013 5:49 PM

I ran into this problem today working in Excel 2010 at 90% zoom.

First I tried F8 and Shift+F8 but neither of them worked.

Next I changed the zoom levels up and down and this worked while I was at a different zoom level than the document was saved in but went back to the same problem when I tried working at 90% zoom again.

Finally I came across the fix mentioned below from July 2, 2012 that suggested switching from Normal View to Page and then to Print view and back to Normal and this worked!!! Thanks to all for your input below, you saved my Monday morning!

LIST OF POSSIBLE FIXES:

1. Try using the F8 and/or Shift+F8 [extend selection] to toggle back and forth.

2. Change zoom level of your document up or down [this was only a temporary fix for me].

3. Change page layout between Normal, Page Layout, and Page Break Preview (the 3 boxes at the bottom right hand corner of excel spreadsheet) then back to Normal.

• Proposed as answer by Squintz221 Monday, September 09, 2013 5:49 PM

I ran into the same problem using MS Excel 2007. My file was .xlsx extension and I saved the spreadsheet as .xls. Problem solved. 

Using the latest iteration of EXCEL, this happens only when working in "Page Layout" mode (bug).  If this happens, I select VIEW>Workbook Views>(anything but "Page Layout").  Since discovering this, I only work in "Normal" or "Page Break Preview".  Note: f8 and switching back to Page Layout did nothing for me. 

I have been experiencing the same problem, but I seem to have figured out the method to the madness. If you click in the direct center or at the right of the cell box, it will select the adjacent box as well. But, if you click to the left of the cell, it will only select the one box. 

Hope this helps. 

This occurs in my case as well.  I'll be using this as my short term fix, but the issue is still puzzling.

Changing the view zoom to something other than 100% solves the problem.  Changing it back to 100% brings the problem back.

This seems to be a bug.

Using the Custom Zoom option and changing to <90% solves the problem. If you want to use 100% zoom then use the Custom Zoom option to change back to 100% (Do Not use the 100% Icon). I am now using 100% Zoom without a problem.

Thank you!

In our Excel 2010 case we found that a user had changed the file's "view" from Normal to Page Layout. Setting the view back to Normal and saving the file resolved it (See below).

• Proposed as answer by Specboy Thursday, March 20, 2014 3:37 PM

In our Excel 2010 case we found that a user had changed the file's "view" from Normal to Page Layout. Setting the view back to Normal and saving the file resolved it (See below).

• Proposed as answer by Specboy Thursday, March 20, 2014 3:37 PM

I am using 2010 also.  Same resolution here F8 did not work.  NumLock- or NumLock+ did not work.  Changing the zoom from 100% worked.  Very annoying when working in large workbooks.  Very annoying period!

Using Windows 8.1 - Excel 2013

Like many others F8 did not work for me; changing zoom back to 100% did not work either.

Changing to Normal View - nope, problem still exists.

What worked was - continuously hit Shift key; when asked to enable Sticky Keys - hit cancel.

I tried the F8 and escape keys and nothing seemed to help but changing the view size did. It's definitely a defect within excel itself.  

I'm not sure why it does it but I found an easy fix that has worked every time for me.  Click on the box you want and while holding the left mouse button scroll up however many times you need to to get it to the one box.  I hope that's clear. :-)

• Proposed as answer by impatches Friday, July 04, 2014 9:00 PM

I'm not sure why it does it but I found an easy fix that has worked every time for me.  Click on the box you want and while holding the left mouse button scroll up however many times you need to to get it to the one box.  I hope that's clear. :-)

• Proposed as answer by impatches Friday, July 04, 2014 9:00 PM

Thank you!!

The F8 wasn't working for me but the 100% solved it - weird!!

Toggling F8 doesn't do anything for me.  Any other ideas?

I discovered mine was NOT on Normal View and switching it to Normal remedied the problem.  I could not get f8 to work either.  Thanks!

This occurred to me and it appeared that my shift key was stuck. After clicking/pressing shift key on older keyboard, problem was resolved. I could recreate just by holding shift key down. This problem (stuck shift key) also caused Internet Explorer to open up a new separate window rather than just displaying the open tabs and sessions.

Found this via search so hope this helps someone if experiencing similar problem.