How to Remove Strikethrough in Excel? 7 Easy Ways!

The strikethrough format is commonly used in Excel to indicate that a value, formula, or cell reference is no longer relevant or that a particular item or task has been completed.

Below is an example of cells where the strikethrough format has been applied to a list of activities you can do in Arizona.

cells would strike through format that we want to remove

Sometimes, you may want to remove the strikethrough format, for example, to reinstate a task’s incomplete status.

This tutorial shows seven techniques for removing the strikethrough formatting in Excel.

Table of Contents

Method #1: Keyboard Shortcut to Remove Strikethrough in Excel

Below is a keyboard shortcut you can use to remove strikethrough formatting in Excel.

Control + 5

The following data range shows a tour group’s activities in Phoenix, Arizona.

The strikethrough format is applied to the cells to indicate the completed activities.

We want to remove the strikethrough format in these cells so that we can reuse the same list for another tour group.

Below are the steps you can use to remove the strikethrough formatting with the keyboard shortcut:

Select the dataset.

select the data set that has the strike through format applied to the cells

Press Ctrl + 5 (press and hold down the Ctrl key, and then press the 5 key on the alphanumeric keypad).

use the keyboard shortcut to remove the strike-through format from cells in Excel

The strikethrough format would be removed from the dataset.

Note: Excel also allows you to apply the strikethrough format on some part of the text in a cell rather than the entire cell. In case you have cells that have strike-through format applied to part of the text, you can get into the edit mode (by double-clicking on the cell or by pressing the F2 key on your keyboard), select the part of the text from which you want to remove the strike-through format and then use the above keyboard shortcut.

Also read: How to Strikethrough in Excel

Method #2: Using the Format Cells Dialog Box

We can use the Format Cells dialog box to remove strikethrough in Excel.

Suppose we have the following dataset showing activities done completed in column A, and we want to remove the strikethrough format from these cells.

data set that has the strike through format that we want to remove

Below are the steps to do this using the Format cells dialog box:

Select the cells that have the strikethrough format that you want to remove

select the cells that have the strike through format

Right-click the selection and choose Format Cells on the shortcut menu to open the Format Cells dialog box.

right click on the selection and then click on the format cells option

Alternatively, you can use the shortcut Ctrl + 1 to open the Format Cells dialog box.

On the Format Cells dialog box, open the Font tab, deselect the Strikethrough option on the Effects option group, and click OK.

uncheck the strikethrough option in the font tab in the format cells dialog box

The strikethrough formatting is removed from the selected cells:

Method #3: Using the Strikethrough Icon Added to the QAT

The Strikethrough command button is readily available on the Ribbon of Microsoft Word,

strikethrough icon is available in the ribbon in MS Word

But the command is not available on the Excel Ribbon.

However, we can add the command to the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) of Excel Ribbon and apply it to remove strikethrough formatting in Excel.

Add the Strikethrough Command Button to the QAT

We use the below steps to add the Strikethrough command button to the QAT:

Open the Customize Quick Access Toolbar drop-down on the QAT and choose the More Commands option.

On the Excel Options dialog box, open the Choose commands from drop-down and choose the All Commands option.

select the all commands option in the Excel options dialog box

Scroll down the commands list box, select the Strikethrough command, and click the Add button.

scroll down and find the strike through option and then click on the add button

Notice that the Strikethrough command has been added to the box on the right of the Add button.

strike through icon has been added to the quick access toolbar section

Click OK on the Excel Options dialog box.

Notice that the Strikethrough command button has been added to the QAT:

strike through icon appears in the quick access toolbar

Use the Strikethrough Command Icon from the QAT

We can now use the Strikethrough command button to remove the strikethrough formatting from the following dataset:

data set that has strike through that we want to remove

Below are the steps to do this:

Select the cells that have the strikethrough format that you want to remove.

select the cells with the strike through formatting

Click the Strikethrough command icon on the QAT.

The strikethrough formatting is removed from the dataset.

the strike-through format has been removed from the selected cells

Note: Once you add the Strikethrough icon in the Quick Access Toolbar, you will be able to see it every time you open any Excel file on your system

Method #4: Using Flash Fill to Remove Strikethrough

We can apply the Flash Fill feature in Excel to remove strikethrough formatting in Excel.

Flash Fill automatically fills in values in a column based on patterns it recognizes in the data.

It is a time-saving tool that can save a lot of effort when working with data that needs to be formatted or manipulated in a specific way.

The following dataset has the strikethrough formatting:

data set where we have strike through format that we want to remove

We want to use Flash Fill to remove the strikethrough formatting from the dataset.

Below are the steps to remove strikethrough using Flash Fill:

Select cell B2 and type in the contents of cell A2 without the strikethrough formatting:

Select cell B3 and type the data in cell A3 without the strikethrough formatting.
Select cell B4 and type the data in cell A4. Notice that as you begin to type, Flash Fill gives you suggestions for the following entries in gray text color:

flash fill recommendations show up in light gray text color

Quickly look at the suggestions and press Enter to accept them if they are correct.

press enter to accept the suggestions made by flash fill

If Flash Fill does not give suggestions for the following entries or the suggestions are incorrect, finish typing the entry in cell B4 and then continue with the following steps:

Select cell B5 and press Ctrl + E.

Delete column A by right-clicking its letter header and choosing Delete on the shortcut menu.

Delete the column with text with strikethrough

We now have a dataset without the strikethrough formatting.

strike through format has been removed from the cells

We can change the header of the dataset as needed.

Method #5: Using the Clear Formats Command

We can apply the Clear Formats command on the Excel Ribbon to remove strikethrough formatting in Excel.

Let’s consider the following dataset showing activities a particular tour team completed.

data set with strike through format that we want to remove

Below are the steps to remove strikethrough formatting using the clear formats option:

Select the entire dataset.

select the cells that has the strike through format that we want to get rid of

On the Home tab, open the Clear drop-down on the Editing group and choose the Clear Formats command.

The strikethrough formatting is suddenly removed from the dataset:

straight through format has been removed from the selected cells

Note: When you use the Clear Format option, it will remove all the formatting, including the strikethrough format. For example, if the selected cells have formattings such as fill color, borders, or bold/italicized text, these would also be removed.

Method #6: Using the Paste Special Feature

We can apply the Paste Special Feature in Excel that allows us to paste data into a cell or range of cells with specific formatting to remove strikethrough in Excel.

The below dataset has a strikethrough formatting:

data set that has strike through format that we want to remove

Here are the steps you can use to remove strikethrough formatting using the Paste Special option:

Select the dataset, including the header.

Press Ctrl + C to copy the data.

Notice the “marching ants” border around the dataset. The border indicates that the dataset is copied to the Excel clipboard and is available for pasting.

Select cell B1 or another empty cell of your choice.
Press Ctrl + Alt + V to launch the Paste Special dialog box.
Select the Values option and click OK.

select the values option in the paste special dialog box

The data is pasted in column B without the strikethrough formatting:

the data is pasted in another column without the formatting

Delete column A and add a fill color to the header of the remaining dataset:

remove the original column and give the formatting to newly pasted text

Note: In this method, we copied the text in the cells that had the strike-through format and pasted only the values in another column. This also means that in case there are other formatting that has been applied to the cells, these would also be removed as only the unformatted text is copied

Method #7: Using VBA Code to Remove Strikethrough in Excel

You can also use VBA in Excel to remove the strikethrough format in cells.

For example, the dataset below shows activities a particular tour group completed.

data set that has the strike through format applied to the cells that we want to get rid of

The strikethrough in the cells indicates the completed status of the activities.

We want to use Excel VBA to remove the strikethrough formatting from the list to reuse it.

You can use the below steps to use VBA to remove the strikethrough:

Press the Alt + F11 key combination to open the Visual Basic Editor.
Open the Insert menu and choose Module to insert a module.

Copy the following code and paste it into the module:

'Code developed by Steve Scott from https://spreadsheetplanet.com
Sub RemoveStrikethrough()

    ' Declare a variable to hold the range of selected cells
    Dim selectedRange As Range

    ' Assign the currently selected cells in Excel to the selectedRange variable
    Set selectedRange = Selection

    ' Iterate through each cell in the selectedRange variable
    For Each currentCell In selectedRange

        ' Remove the strikethrough formatting from the current cell by setting the Strikethrough property of the cell's font to False
        currentCell.Font.Strikethrough = False

    ' Move to the next cell in the range
    Next currentCell

End Sub

Save the code and the workbook as an Excel Macro-Enabled Workbook.
Press the shortcut Alt + F11 to switch to the active worksheet containing the dataset.
Select the dataset.

select the data set that has the cells from which we want to get rid of the strike through format

Select Alt + F8 to open the Macro dialog box.
On the Macro dialog box, select the RemoveStrikethrough macro and click Run.

run the macro code to remove the strike through format

The RemoveStrikethrough Excel VBA code is executed, and the strikethrough formatting is removed from the selected dataset.

the strike through format has been cleared by the VBA code

In this tutorial, we covered seven ways to remove the strikethrough format in Excel.

The easiest would be to use the keyboard shortcut, but you can also use methods such as adding the Strikethrough icon in the toolbar or using the VBA code.

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