Highlight Every Other Row in Excel

Highlighting alternating rows in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet creates a much more visually pleasing and legible format for your data. While you can do this manually in a larger spreadsheet with a great deal of data, it will take a considerable amount of time. Instead, highlight every other row in Excel using the built-in Conditional Formatting feature.

Steps

  1. Launch Microsoft Excel.
  2. Choose the "Open File" command, browse to the file you'll be working with and click the OK button to open the file.
  3. Select the rows that you will be highlighting by clicking and dragging to select the entire range of cells.
  4. Apply the Conditional Formatting feature.
    • In Excel 2003, this is found in the Format menu.
    • In Excel 2007 and 2010, this is found on the Home tab in the Styles section.
  5. Create a new formatting rule using a formula to determine which cells to format.
    • In Excel 2003, set condition 1 to "Formula is."
    • In Excel 2007 and 2010, click "New Rule" and then choose "Use a Formula" as the rule type to highlight rows.
    • Enter "=MOD(ROW(),2)=1" in the formula box, without the quotation marks.
  6. Click the Format button to apply the highlighting color and shade.
    • Choose the desired fill color and pattern and then click the OK button to apply the rule.
  7. Review the conditional formatting and make any necessary changes to the fill color and pattern for better legibility.



Tips

  • You can also use the "Format as Table" command to create alternating row highlighting in Excel, but this only works if you make no changes to the table after applying the formatting.

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Sources and Citations

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