Shading Rows with Conditional Formatting

If you haven't tried out the conditional formatting features of Excel before, they can be quite handy. One way to use this feature is to cause Excel to shade every other row in a table. This is great when you have a particularly wide table, and you want to make it a bit easier to read on printouts. Simply follow these steps:

1. Select the table whose alternate rows you want to shade.
2. Choose Conditional Formatting from the Format menu. Excel displays the Conditional Formatting dialog box. (Click here to see a related figure.)
3. Using the pull-down condition, select Formula Is. Excel changes the dialog box controls to reflect your choice.
4. In the formula box, enter the following:

     =MOD(ROW(),2)=0

1. Click on the Format button. Excel displays the Format Cells dialog box.
2. Make sure the Patterns tab is selected. (Click here to see a related figure.)
3. Select the color you want used for the row shading.
4. Click on OK to close the Format Cells dialog box.
5. Click on OK to close the Conditional Formatting dialog box.