highlighting as in selecting or coloring?

TTFN

As in to "Fill" a cell a given colour or to highlight it.

You might try conditional formatting, there's no quicker shortcut, it's automatic.

Or, select all your cells to be highlighted using "ctrl" before clicking on any additional cells in your selection, then setting the color only once for the whole selection.

tg

Remember that F4 repeats your last command, including formatting.

A particularly useful, and rarely documented, shortcut is

Ctrl-Shift-*

If you do this while your cursor is inside a rectangular block of used cells, the entire rectangular block is immediately selected.  The results are slightly less predictable if your cursor is inside a non-rectangular block, but not totally counter-intuitive.

Place cursor in cell you want to start with, press Shift
and do the highlight with arrows to any direction you need to go.

To Select Excel cells via the keyboard

· [Ctrl]A  - selects the entire worksheet and is handy when you want to convert every formula in your worksheet to a value in one fell swoop.

· [Ctrl][Shift][*]  - tells Excel to scan the cells around a cell, make a computer-educated guess based on the contents, and select what Microsoft calls "the current region." Once selected, you can copy, cut, or format the text as you like.
 
· [Ctrl][Shift][End]  - starts with the current cell and selects a rectangle of cells from that point to the last used cell in the worksheet's bottom-right corner.

· [Ctrl][Shift][Home]  - selects a rectangle of cells starting from the current cell and ending in cell A1.

· [Ctrl][Shift]  - combined with any of the four arrow keys begins at the current cell and selects through the last nonblank cell in the same row or column as the active cell.

This is how these shortcuts work if you key them without first selecting a cell. If you select at least one cell and then press any of the key combinations above, Excel extends the existing selection.

Remember...
       "If you don't use your head,
                       your going to have to use your feet."

I don't think anybody understands what I am looking for so I will restate it:

I do a great deal of estimating where I have to go through large amounts of data. Say I was updating a line and want just want to highlight it (i.e., change the colour of the cell to yellow), to show that I have already changed it.

I am somebody who does not use a mouse for anything in Excel - i.e., I use the keyboard exclusively for all commands. How do I change the colour of a cell without pressing the "Fill Colour" button?

How 'bout just a simple keyboard macro?

ActiveCell.Rows("1:1").EntireRow.Interior.ColorIndex = 35 assigned to a control-key combo?

I think conditional formatting is still your best option. Add a column to hold a flag value, perhaps W for white background and Y for yellow highlight.

Put an if statement in the conditional formatting to change the cell color to yellow if the appropriate flag cell contains a Y.

This will allow you to toggle the highlight entirely though keyboard control in a spreadsheet with this format system applied.

Hope it helps.

Then create the macro to automate this function:

Goto TOOLS/MACRO/RECORD NEW MACRO
Give it a name (ie. highlight_yellow)
Assign a shortcut key and hit OK (ctrl-y)
[The stop recoding toolbar should appear)

Then using the mouse hit FORMAT/CELLS/PATTERNS/(pick yellow for this example) and then OK

Now hit the stop recording button om the stop recoding toolbar.

Now after selecting the cells you want to highlight hit ctrl-y (for this example)

Remember...
       "If you don't use your head,
                       your going to have to use your feet."