Excel Shade alternate rows on large spreadsheet

tricky145

Hi All,

Working on a large spreadsheet with addresses going down the sheet and features along the top. Where a property has a specific feature the cell contains text and is colour coded (traffic light colours)

My problem is the sheet has grown and I now print a copy for the wall, to avoid selecting the wrong cell when reading accross the sheet I have tried to format the sheet with every other row having a light background shade using conditional formatting but this affects the cells colour codes - eg overwrites any colours already in cells and prevents colouring any new cells.

Is there a way of formatting the sheet with alternate rows having a background shadeing that will allow me to colour an individual cell as its status changes ( as i completed work on it)

thanks in advance
PS I am not a excel guru.

bengalknights

Have you tried defining a name and set print area to defined area?

Dave_C_2

I've just tried this in Excel 2003

Go down the left hand side Ctrl+Click on the even row numbers to highlight alternate rows.

1. Select Format>Cells> and click on the Patterns tab
2. In the patterns drop-down select a light shade of grey (I chose 6.25% grey)
3. This puts a background pattern of dots in the cells of alternate rows.
4. You can write to the cells and colour them without losing the background pattern.

You needn't do alternate rows every third or fourth row will look better and easier for the eye to follow.

As long as you choose colour (not pattern) in any subsequent conditional formatting you should be OK.

Dave

WhiteChristmas

In Excel 2010, select the entire workarea using the button in the top left corner between the row and column indicators then, on the Home tab, find the Styles group and select Format as Table.

Choose the layout you want from the options presented.