Skip to main content

How to shade every other or alternate rows in Excel?

To improve readability, some people shade every other row in a busy Excel sheet. But in a worksheet, if there are so many rows to be shaded, and you have to do it one by one, it will waste a lot of time. Are there any simple ways to do this quickly?These methods show you how to shade alternate rows or columns in excel .

To shade every other row with Conditional Formatting formula in Excel
To shade every other row quickly and timesaving with Kutools for Excel


To shade every other row with Conditional Formatting formula in Excel

1. Select the range that you want to shade, then click Home>> Conditional Formatting>> New Rule... See screenshot:

2. Then a New Formatting Rule dialog box will pop out. Select Use a formula to determine which cells to format item. Then Input the formula “=MOD(ROW(),2)” in Format values where this formula is true.

3. Then click the Format… button, another Format Cells dialog box will pop out. Go to Fill tab and choose one colour for shading the background. See screenshot:

3. Click OK to return the New Formatting Rule dialog box, and also you will see the colour in the Preview box.

4. Then click OK. You will get the result you want. See screenshot:

doc shade alternate1

Notes:

1. Insert or delete a row in the shading range and you will see that the shading persists.

2. If you want to shade alternate columns,using this formula “=MOD(COLUMN(),2)”.


To shade every other row quickly and timesaving with Kutools for Excel

With the Alternate Row / Column Shading utility of the third party add-in Kutools for Excel, you can shade alternate rows or columns quickly and conveniently.

Before applying Kutools for Excel, please download and install it firstly.

1. Select the range that you want to shade. Click Kutools > Format > Alternate Row/ Column Shading. See screenshot:

2. In the Alternate Row / Column Shading dialog box, you need to do as follows:

doc shade every other row2




(1) Select Rows option in the Apply Shading to section.

(2) Choose the Conditional formatting option in the Shading method section.

(3) Specify the color you want to use from the Shade color drop-down list.

(4) In the Shade every box, enter the alternate rows number you want to shade.
For example, we want to shade every one row in selected range, then enter number 1.

(5) Click OK

Then you can see every 1 row of selected range is shaded with conditional formatting immediately as below screenshot shown:

doc shade alternate

  If you want to have a free trial (30-day) of this utility, please click to download it, and then go to apply the operation according above steps.


To shade every other row quickly and timesaving with Kutools for Excel

Best Office Productivity Tools

🤖 Kutools AI Aide: Revolutionize data analysis based on: Intelligent Execution   |  Generate Code  |  Create Custom Formulas  |  Analyze Data and Generate Charts  |  Invoke Kutools Functions
Popular Features: Find, Highlight or Identify Duplicates   |  Delete Blank Rows   |  Combine Columns or Cells without Losing Data   |   Round without Formula ...
Super Lookup: Multiple Criteria VLookup    Multiple Value VLookup  |   VLookup Across Multiple Sheets   |   Fuzzy Lookup ....
Advanced Drop-down List: Quickly Create Drop Down List   |  Dependent Drop Down List   |  Multi-select Drop Down List ....
Column Manager: Add a Specific Number of Columns  |  Move Columns  |  Toggle Visibility Status of Hidden Columns  |  Compare Ranges & Columns ...
Featured Features: Grid Focus   |  Design View   |   Big Formula Bar    Workbook & Sheet Manager   |  Resource Library (Auto Text)   |  Date Picker   |  Combine Worksheets   |  Encrypt/Decrypt Cells    Send Emails by List   |  Super Filter   |   Special Filter (filter bold/italic/strikethrough...) ...
Top 15 Toolsets12 Text Tools (Add Text, Remove Characters, ...)   |   50+ Chart Types (Gantt Chart, ...)   |   40+ Practical Formulas (Calculate age based on birthday, ...)   |   19 Insertion Tools (Insert QR Code, Insert Picture from Path, ...)   |   12 Conversion Tools (Numbers to Words, Currency Conversion, ...)   |   7 Merge & Split Tools (Advanced Combine Rows, Split Cells, ...)   |   ... and more

Supercharge Your Excel Skills with Kutools for Excel, and Experience Efficiency Like Never Before. Kutools for Excel Offers Over 300 Advanced Features to Boost Productivity and Save Time.  Click Here to Get The Feature You Need The Most...

Description


Office Tab Brings Tabbed interface to Office, and Make Your Work Much Easier

  • Enable tabbed editing and reading in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, Access, Visio and Project.
  • Open and create multiple documents in new tabs of the same window, rather than in new windows.
  • Increases your productivity by 50%, and reduces hundreds of mouse clicks for you every day!
Comments (12)
No ratings yet. Be the first to rate!
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
=ISEVEN(AGGREGATE(3,5,A$2:A2)) will maintain the alternate shading even when rows have been filtered
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
Instructions were perfect. Works great!! Thanks!!
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
This is great. how can I achieve the same effect in word 2010 thanks bret
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
For those of you who had problems with this formula, make sure you insert a space between the two parentheses after "ROW". This is where I initially went wrong and I had the same problem: "The formula is invalid." Hope this helps.
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
Works perfectly on my side that goodness i found this site without any agony! found it on my second Google link Thank you :lol:
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
Doe NOT work in Excel 2013! When I press "OK" after inputting the formula and choosing the fill color, Excel tells: "We found a problem with this formula." :sad:
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
THANKKKKK YOUUU! This was so helpful! I have been searching for a way to do this for a good hour! thank you so much!
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
:lol: THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
As a general rule, I never post comments on any site, let alone one providing assistance with Excel. However, in this instance I just want to extend a, 'thank you!' You have saved me so much time and even despite my fruitless poking,I wouldn't have uncovered the formula to alternate cells I copied the formula provided, and voila! Thank you X560. Best, BMitche
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
I cannot get this to work, I always get a notification from Excel that the formula is not correct. Do I need to change some settings in Excel in order for this to work?
There are no comments posted here yet
Load More
Please leave your comments in English
Posting as Guest
×
Rate this post:
0   Characters
Suggested Locations