How to Strikethrough in Excel (Windows, Mac & Web)

Knowing how to strikethrough in Excel saves time when you mark completed tasks, cross out canceled orders, flag obsolete data, or visually show that a value no longer applies.

Strikethrough is a cell font effect, just like bold or italic, but Microsoft hid it deeper in the interface than most other formatting options, which is why so many spreadsheet users ask how to strike through in Excel even after using the program for years. The good news is there are four reliable ways to add a line through your text, and once you learn the keyboard shortcut you will never reach for the menu again.

The fastest method on Windows is the shortcut Ctrl+5, which toggles strikethrough on any selected cell, range, or piece of text inside the formula bar. On a Mac the equivalent shortcut is Cmd+Shift+X, although older versions of Excel for Mac respond to Cmd+Shift+X+5 instead.

If shortcuts are not your thing, you can open the Format Cells dialog with Ctrl+1 (Cmd+1 on Mac), tick the Strikethrough checkbox under the Font tab, and click OK. Power users add the strikethrough button to the Quick Access Toolbar so it sits one click away above the ribbon. And if you keep a checklist in a spreadsheet, conditional formatting can auto-strike rows the moment you tick a box, no manual formatting needed.

This guide walks through every method step by step on Windows, Mac, and Excel for the web, then covers the smarter techniques like conditional auto-strike, removing strikethrough in bulk, and applying it to part of a cell rather than the whole thing. By the end you will know exactly how to strikeout in Excel for any version, any platform, and any use case.

Whether you came here looking for how do i strikethrough in excel as a beginner, or how to strike off in excel as an experienced analyst building a dashboard, the same core shortcuts and rules apply across every edition Microsoft ships today.

Before diving into the methods, it helps to understand what strikethrough actually does in Excel. The line that appears through your text is a font effect, which means it is stored as cell formatting rather than as part of the cell value. If a cell contains the number 250 with strikethrough applied, the SUM function still reads it as 250 because the underlying value is unchanged. This matters when you want to subtotal everything except items you crossed out.

To exclude struck-through values from a calculation you either filter them out, store a separate status column, or use a helper formula that checks formatting via VBA, since native Excel functions cannot detect strikethrough directly. This single behavior trips up more spreadsheet users than any other, so if you have ever wondered why a total stayed the same after striking through a row, that is the answer.

The other thing worth knowing is that strikethrough can be applied at the cell level or at the character level. Cell-level strikethrough draws a line through every character in the cell, while character-level strikethrough lets you select a few words inside the cell, in the formula bar, and apply the line through only that portion.

This is incredibly useful when you want to keep the original price visible next to a new price, like writing "Was $99 Now $79" in one cell with the "Was $99" portion struck through. Many marketers and retailers use this exact pattern to keep promotional sheets readable without splitting price history across two columns, and it is one of the few cases where partial-cell formatting is genuinely better than separate cells.

It is also worth pointing out that strikethrough survives most file conversions. Save your workbook as .xlsx and open it in LibreOffice Calc, Google Sheets, or Apple Numbers, and the struck cells stay struck. Export to PDF and the line is preserved exactly as it appears on screen. Where strikethrough does not survive is plain CSV export and a few legacy systems that ignore font formatting on import, which is why a separate status column is always safer when the data needs to travel.

Let us look at the four core methods in detail, starting with the keyboard shortcut because that is the technique you will use ninety percent of the time. To strike out text in Excel with the shortcut, click the cell once to select it, then press Ctrl+5. The text gets a line through it instantly. To strikethrough on Excel for a range, drag to select multiple cells first, then press the shortcut.

To put a line through text in Excel for only part of a cell, double-click the cell to enter edit mode, drag to highlight the specific characters you want crossed out, and press Ctrl+5. The rest of the cell stays normal. The shortcut also works on column and row headers when you have an entire column or row selected, so if you want every cell in column D struck through, click the D header and hit Ctrl+5.

The second method uses the Format Cells dialog, which is the official location of the strikethrough option in Excel. Select your cell or range, press Ctrl+1 to open Format Cells, click the Font tab at the top of the dialog, and tick the Strikethrough checkbox under the Effects section. Click OK to apply. This route is slower but useful when you also want to change the font color, size, or weight at the same time, since everything is in one panel.

Right-clicking a cell and choosing Format Cells from the context menu opens the same dialog if you prefer the mouse. Trainers often recommend this method to new users because the visual checkbox confirms exactly what is being applied, which avoids the confusion of pressing a shortcut and not being sure whether it worked.

The third method is the Quick Access Toolbar trick, where you permanently add a strikethrough button above the ribbon. Click the small dropdown arrow at the right end of the Quick Access Toolbar, choose More Commands, switch the dropdown to Commands Not in the Ribbon, scroll to Strikethrough, click Add, and OK. A small abc-with-a-line icon now appears at the top of Excel, and one click toggles strikethrough on any selection.

This is the technique people use when they need to cross out text in Excel hundreds of times a day and prefer a visible button. Accountants reviewing reconciliation sheets, project managers tracking deliverables, and editors marking up content lists all tend to set this up once and use it for years.

The fourth and most powerful method is conditional formatting, which lets Excel apply strikethrough automatically based on a rule you define. This is how productivity templates and to-do lists make completed items appear crossed out the instant you mark them done. To set it up, select the range you want to monitor, go to Home then Conditional Formatting, choose New Rule, pick "Use a formula to determine which cells to format", and enter a formula like =$B2="Done" if column B holds your status.

Click Format, switch to the Font tab, tick Strikethrough, and OK out of every dialog. Now every row where column B equals Done gets struck through automatically, and unticking it removes the line just as fast. The dollar sign before the column letter locks the reference so the rule checks the same column for every row, which is the small detail that turns a single-cell rule into a sheet-wide automation.

You can extend this to checkboxes by linking each checkbox to a cell that returns TRUE or FALSE, then using a formula like =$D2=TRUE in your conditional formatting rule. This is the trick behind those satisfying to-do list spreadsheets where ticking a box instantly grays and strikes through the entire row.

Once you understand how to strikeout in Excel via conditional formatting, you stop thinking of it as a formatting task and start using it as a status indicator. The same logic works for striking through expired warranties, completed onboarding steps, returned library books, or any other binary status you want to display at a glance.

One of the most common follow-up questions after learning how to strike in Excel is how to remove strikethrough quickly, especially when a whole sheet inherited the formatting from a template. The easiest way is to select the affected cells and press the same shortcut you used to add the line. Ctrl+5 on Windows or Cmd+Shift+X on Mac toggles strikethrough off just as fast as it turned it on.

If a range has mixed formatting, where some cells are struck and others are not, pressing the shortcut once will apply strikethrough to everything, and pressing it again clears it all. To clear all formatting in one step including strikethrough, font color, fill, and borders, select the cells and use Home then Clear then Clear Formats. This is the nuclear option, useful when you have inherited a messy template and want to start fresh, but be aware it also removes any number formatting you set up, so apply it carefully.

Another frequent question is how do you strike out in Excel when copying from Word or another source that already has strikethrough applied. When you paste, Excel preserves the source formatting by default, so the line carries over. If you want plain text without the line, use Paste Special and choose Values, or paste with Ctrl+Shift+V and pick the Values option.

This pastes the underlying text without any formatting, leaving you free to apply your own. The same approach works in reverse when copying from Excel into Word or PowerPoint, where you can choose Keep Source Formatting to preserve the strikes or Use Destination Theme to drop them.

Users often ask how to strike out a word in Excel inside a longer sentence, which is the partial-cell case. The trick that confuses people is that you cannot just click the cell once and select a word with the mouse, because that selects the whole cell.

You must double-click first to enter edit mode, then drag the cursor over the specific word, then press Ctrl+5. The line appears only on the highlighted word, and the rest of the sentence stays normal. The same flow works in the formula bar at the top of the screen, which some users find easier because the bar gives more room to see what you are doing.

Knowing when to use strikethrough is just as important as knowing how to do a strikethrough in Excel. The format works best for status, history, and visual comparison, and less well for anything that needs to be machine-readable. Use it freely on personal task lists, edit logs, and price comparisons, and use it sparingly on data tables that get exported to other systems where formatting is stripped.

If you find yourself reaching for strikethrough constantly, it is worth comparing the two main techniques head to head so you pick the right one for each situation. The keyboard shortcut wins on raw speed and is the right answer for ninety percent of one-off formatting jobs. The Format Cells dialog wins when you need to combine strikethrough with other font changes, when you are formatting a printed report, or when you want a visual confirmation that the option is actually applied. There is no universally correct answer, just a faster path for each context.

For users coming from Google Sheets, the muscle memory is slightly different. Google Sheets uses Alt+Shift+5 on Windows and Cmd+Shift+X on Mac, so the Mac shortcut is identical but the Windows shortcut differs. If you switch between the two products daily, the easiest fix is to add the strikethrough button to the Quick Access Toolbar in Excel and to the toolbar in Google Sheets, then click the button in either product instead of relying on different shortcuts. That removes the mental switch and keeps your hands on the mouse during heavy formatting sessions.

Beyond the basics, advanced users sometimes need to apply strikethrough conditionally based on a date, like striking through tasks whose due date has passed without being marked complete. The conditional formatting formula for that looks like =AND($C2<TODAY(),$D2<>"Done"), assuming column C holds the due date and column D holds the status. This single rule turns Excel into a lightweight deadline tracker, where overdue items get crossed out automatically until you either mark them done or move the date.

The last technique worth knowing is how to apply strikethrough through VBA, which matters if you are building macros or shared templates. The property is Range.Font.Strikethrough, and setting it to True applies the line while False removes it. A one-line macro like Range("A1:A100").Font.Strikethrough = True strikes through a hundred cells instantly, and the same line with False at the end clears them all. This is the foundation of any custom button that needs to toggle strikethrough on a dynamic range without the user having to remember the shortcut.

Whichever method you choose, the core idea stays the same. Strikethrough is a font effect, the Ctrl+5 shortcut is your fastest entry point, the Format Cells dialog is your fallback, the Quick Access Toolbar is your permanent button, and conditional formatting is how you automate it for status-driven workflows. Once you have these four tools in your toolkit, the question of how to strikethrough in Excel stops being a search query and becomes a one-second action.

Keep this guide bookmarked for the days you forget the Mac shortcut or need the conditional formatting formula, and the rest will become second nature within a week of regular use. Practice the shortcut on a throwaway sheet for five minutes, set up one conditional formatting rule on a real to-do list, and add the Quick Access Toolbar button once and forget it. After that, every project tracker, edit log, and price sheet you build will benefit from cleaner visual status indicators without any extra effort on your part.