TikZ-matrix: style or style-lists for fixed elements

I’m not sure how elegant this approach is—after all, elegance is quite subjective. We simply generate the highlighting styles programmatically using nested \foreach loops.

\documentclass[margin=24pt]{standalone} \usepackage{tikz} \usetikzlibrary{matrix} \begin{document} \begin{tikzpicture} \def\A{A} \def\B{B} \def\C{C} \def\D{D} % --- Generate a list of styles for pink-highlighted cells --- \def\highlightlist{} \foreach \block in {0,1,2,3} { \foreach \i in {1,...,6} { \pgfmathtruncatemacro{\row}{\block*6 + \i} \pgfmathtruncatemacro{\col}{\block + 1} \ifx\highlightlist\empty \xdef\highlightlist{row \row\space column \col/.style={nodes={fill=pink}}} \else \xdef\highlightlist{\highlightlist, row \row\space column \col/.style={nodes={fill=pink}}} \fi } } % --- Matrix with \\[...] to add extra vertical space between blocks --- \expanded{% \noexpand\matrix[ matrix of nodes, column sep=0.125em, row sep=0.1525em, fill=gray!33, \highlightlist ] } (s1) { \A & \B & \C & \D \\ \A & \B & \D & \C \\ \A & \C & \B & \D \\ \A & \C & \D & \B \\ \A & \D & \B & \C \\ \A & \D & \C & \B \\[0.525em] \A & \B & \C & \D \\ \A & \B & \D & \C \\ \C & \B & \A & \D \\ \C & \B & \D & \A \\ \D & \B & \A & \C \\ \D & \B & \C & \A \\[0.525em] \A & \B & \C & \D \\ \A & \D & \C & \B \\ \B & \A & \C & \D \\ \B & \D & \C & \A \\ \D & \A & \C & \B \\ \D & \B & \C & \A \\[0.525em] \A & \B & \C & \D \\ \A & \C & \B & \D \\ \B & \A & \C & \D \\ \B & \C & \A & \D \\ \C & \A & \B & \D \\ \C & \B & \A & \D \\ }; \end{tikzpicture} \end{document}