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How to Color Every Other Row in Excel

Watch Video – How to Highlight Alternate (Every Other Row) in Excel

Below is the complete written tutorial, in case you prefer reading over watching a video.

Conditional Formatting in Excel can be a great ally in while working with spreadsheets.

A trick as simple as the one to highlight every other row in Excel could immensely increase the readability of your data set.

And it is as EASY as PIE.

Suppose you have a dataset as shown below:Highlight Every Other Row in Excel using Conditional Formatting - Select Data

Let's say you want to highlight every second month (i.e., February, April and so on) in this data set.

This can easily be achieved using conditional formatting.

Highlight Every Other Row in Excel

Here are the steps to highlight every alternate row in Excel:

  1. Select the data set (B4:D15 in this case).Highlight Every Other Row in Excel using Conditional Formatting - Seelct Data
  2. Open the Conditional Formatting dialogue box (Home–> Conditional Formatting–> New Rule) [Keyboard Shortcut – Alt + O + D].Highlight Every other Row in Excel using Conditional Formatting - New Rule
  3. In the dialogue box, click on "Use a Formula to determine which cells to format" option.Highlight Every other Row in Excel using Conditional Formatting - Use a fromula
  4. In Edit the Rule Description section, enter the following formula in the field:
    =MOD(ROW(),2)=1Highlight Every other Row in Excel using Conditional Formatting - MOD Formula
  1. Click on the Format button to set the formatting.Highlight Every Nth Row in Excel using Conditional Formatting - Set Format
  2. Click OK.Highlight Every other Row in Excel using Conditional Formatting - Click OK

That's it!! You have the alternate rows highlighted.Highlight Every other Row in Excel using Conditional Formatting - highlighted data

How does it Work?

Now let's take a step back and understand how this thing works.

The entire magic is in the formula=MOD(ROW(),2)=1. [MOD formula returns the remainder when the ROW number is divided by 2].

This evaluates each cell and checks if it meets the criteria. So it first checks B4. Since the ROW function in B4 would return 4, =MOD(4,2) returns 0, which does not meet our specified criteria.

So it moves on to the other cell in next row.

Here Row number of cell B5 is 5 and =MOD(5,1) returns 1, which meets the condition. Hence, it highlights this entire row (since all the cells in this row have the same row number).

You can change the formula according to your requirements. Here are a few examples:

  • Highlight every 2nd row starting from the first row=MOD(ROW(),2)=0
  • Highlight every 3rd Row=MOD(ROW(),3)=1
  • Highlight every 2nd column = MOD(COLUMN(),2)=0

These banded rows are also called zebra lines and are quite helpful in increasing the readability of the data set.

If you plan to print this, make sure you use a light shade to highlight the rows so that it is readable.

Bonus Tip: Another quick way to highlight alternate rows in Excel is to convert the data range into an Excel Table. As a part of the Excl Table formatting, you can easily highlight alternate rows in Excel (all you need is to use the check the Banded Rows option as shown below):

Highlight Altenate Rows in Excel - Banded Rows

You May Also Like the Following Excel Tutorials:

  • Creating a Heat Map in Excel.
  • How to Apply Conditional Formatting in a Pivot Table in Excel.
  • Conditional Formatting to Create 100% Stacked Bar Chart in Excel.
  • How to Insert Multiple Rows in Excel.
  • How to Count Colored Cells in Excel.
  • How to Highlight Blank Cells in Excel.
  • 7 Quick & Easy Ways to Number Rows in Excel.
  • How to Compare Two Columns in Excel.
  • Insert a Blank Row after Every Row in Excel (or Every Nth Row)

How to Color Every Other Row in Excel

Source: https://trumpexcel.com/highlight-every-other-row-excel/