ben,

The F8 key is often responsible for this.
"Ext" will show in the Status Bar near the clock when it is activated.
The key toggles off and on.

Jim Cone
San Francisco, USA


"ben" wrote in message ...
Hello. I occasionally get into a situation where whenever I move the mouse
it highlights cells and I can't do anything else. Pressing escape or a mouse
button (or pressing any other key it seems) does not stop this effect and I
am forced to do a ctrl-alt-del and end the Excel task so I can load Excel
again to get it back to normal (losing all changes etc). Last time it
happened I was trying to do alt-t,p to protect the sheet when it began.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer.