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  • 5/27/2025
Excel is a powerful tool that allows users to manage and analyze data. One way to make data easier to read and understand is to alternate row colors in Excel. This can be done with or without tables by using the conditional formatting feature. To shade alternate rows in Excel, you can use the conditional formatting option and apply a formula to alternating row colors in Excel. This formula allows you to choose which rows to format based on specific criteria that you define. Another useful feature is the ability to apply alternating row colors in Excel based on groups, which is particularly helpful when working with large data sets. Additionally, Excel has a built-in feature called banded rows that can automatically shade alternate rows. If you are using Excel on a Mac, you can also use conditional formatting to shade every other row. By utilizing these formatting techniques, you can improve the readability of your data and make it more visually appealing.

Here are the steps highlighted in my video.

Automatically Highlight New Row
1) Select columns A to D
2) Home ~ Style ~ Conditional Formatting
3) New Rule...
4) Select "Use a formula to determine which cells to format".
5) =AND(MOD(ROW(),2)=0,$A1"")
6) Format
7) Fill tab
8) Select color
9) OK
10) OK

Automatically Draw Border On New Row
1) Select columns A to D
2) Home ~ Style ~ Conditional Formatting
3) New Rule...
4) Select "Use a formula to determine which cells to format".
5) =$A1""
6) Format
7) Border tab
8) Outline
9) OK
10) OK

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Transcript
00:00If you would like to automatically highlight alternate rows and at the same time draw borders
00:04around cell as you add new records to your data set, here's what you must do. First highlight the
00:09columns of your data set. Mine's going to be four from A to D like this. After that, go to home,
00:15under the section styles, go conditional formatting and click on new rules. In here,
00:20you'll be selecting use formula and the formula you'll be using will be this one here.
00:24Next, click on format. Make sure you're on fill and we're going to select a yellow color here and click
00:31OK and click OK one more time. As you can see, the pre-existing data set rows are being highlighted
00:36but if you add more rows, I'm just going to say Jane and maybe Tarzan and maybe Peter, you can see
00:43that the rows are starting to get highlighted accordingly. So the next thing you're going to
00:47do would be to add borders. You're going to highlight the four columns again or however many numbers of
00:53columns that you have in your data set and then go conditional formatting, new rule and then again
00:59click on use formula and this is the formula you're going to use. Once this is done, click on format and
01:05this time around you're going to say borders tab here and click on outline and this will highlight the
01:10cell like this and click on OK and OK one more time. All the pre-existing row again they are highlighted
01:16like this and if you add new row, maybe say Bill and John, you can see that the rows are starting
01:25to get highlighted again and at the same time drawing borders around it.

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