Highlighting won't stop

[Jim Pietila]

Every once in a while when using Excel the mouse beging
highlighting cells and I cannot turn it of, I can't click
it I can't even leave excel as it never loses focus. The
only way to exit is Ctl-Alt-Del and then go to task manger
and kill the process. It renders excel useless. The only
fix is to reboot the entire computer. Any suggestions
would be appreciated.

 

[John Wilson]

Jim,

Try pressing F8 when this happens.

John

 

[Jay]

Every once in a while when using Excel the mouse beging
highlighting cells and I cannot turn it of, ...

When this happens to me with Excel 97, I click on the wheel of the wheel
mouse and the highlighting stops.

 

[Jimmy L. Day]

Pressing F8 should stop it.

 

[David McRitchie]

Hi Jim,
If you see EXT or ADD on the Excel Task Bar hitting F8 once
or twice will turn off the Extend option(s) and your problem is solved..
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/formula.htm#taskbar

If that does not happen then you have what I would call ghosting
and may be one or more problems, and there is no specific
solution. http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/ghosting.txt
Lots of things to try in that file to get out of it. But at least
one item mentioned should allow you to break out without
having to terminate Excel.

To prevent the problem in the future some things to try. But be
aware that problem cannot be forced and no specific solution
for all. See ghosting.txt for more information.
- ** Obtain the latest mouse drivers **
- Change the default mouse button to Enter, instead of
AutoScroll a practically useless function.
- Use of =CELL("filename") may cause problems as
opposed to =CELL("filename",A1) they are NOT the same.
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/pathname.txt
- Avoid use of volatile in functions looking at document properties
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/document.htm
I have done each of these and I have not had the problem for a
couple of years.

And of course maintain backups for recovery
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/backup.htm