How to Highlight in Google Sheets [Easiest Way in 2023]

In this article we will show you how to highlight in Google Sheets. We cover how to highlight text and cells. Simply follow the steps below:

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How to Highlight Cells in Google Sheets

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1. Select the cells to highlight

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You can simply click and hold and drag your cursor over the cells you wish to highlight.

Highlight cells google sheets, select cells to highlight

2. Click the Fill color icon in the main toolbar

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The Fill color icon looks like a bucket pouring paint.

Highlight cells google sheets, fill color icon in main toolbar

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3. Select the fill color

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A palette will appear, containing standard colors with an option for custom colors, conditional formatting, and alternating colors.

Highlight cells google sheets, fill color palette

The highlight will automatically be applied once you select the color from the palette:

Highlight cells google sheets, output shown

Screencap:

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How to Highlight Text with Color in Google Sheets

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1. Select the cells with text to highlight

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You can simply click-hold and drag your cursor over range of cells to highlight.

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Highlight text google sheets, select text to highlight

2. Click the Text color icon in the main toolbar

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The icon is a capital letter A with a bar of text color below, set as black by default. Notice that the bar below also changes color when you change text color.

Highlight text google sheets, text color icon in the main toolbar

3. Select the text color

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A palette will appear, containing standard colors with an option for custom colors and conditional formatting.

Highlight text google sheets, text color palette

The highlight will automatically be applied to the text once you select the color from the palette:

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Screencap:

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FAQs

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Can I Highlight Using Both Fill Color and Text Color in Google Sheets?

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Yes! Additionally, you can choose which of the two to do first: fill color or text color. Afterwards you can even apply boldface style to text to emphasize the value more:

Highlight with both fill color and text color in google sheets

How to Highlight Non Adjacent Cells in Google Sheets?

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There is a slight adjustment to the process but it essentially remains the same. Hold the Ctrl (CMD on mac) button while selecting cells.

How to highlight non adjacent cells google sheets, hold ctrl button while selecting

Afterwards do the steps 2 and 3 as outlined in the previous sections.

highlight non adjacent cells google sheets, output

How to Select Custom Color for the Highlight in Google Sheets?

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In the step where you select the color from the palette, click the icon of a circle with plus sign.

This option is present in both fill color and text color palettes, but we will only have the fill color as an example.

select custom highlight color google sheets, icon highlighted

You have two ways of specifying the custom color:

Specifying the hex code for the color
Adjusting the hue slider and the color map to select the desired color

select custom highlight color google sheets, custom color palette window

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Once you set the color, click OK.

select custom highlight color google sheets, output

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How to Remove Highlights in Google Sheets?

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1. Select the cells with highlights

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The range may include cells without highlights.

Remove highlights google sheets, select range

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2. Click the Fill color icon or Text color icon, whichever you want to remove

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For this example, we will click Fill color.

Remove highlights google sheets, fill color icon in main toolbar

3. Click Reset

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The Reset option is at the top of the drop-down color palette that will be loaded after clicking either the Fill color or the Text color icon.