Once you have chosen the Classic formatting rule style, the New Formatting Rule dialog will change to show you the related options: In our case, we need the Classic option from the list shown in the screenshot below: The dialog box defaults to 2-color Scale. The New Formatting Rule dialog box will then be displayed as follows. Note that you can also choose Conditional Formatting from the Format menu. In our case, we are skipping the presets (the first five options) and setting up a New Rule. Then, click the option you want from the drop down list. Select the range of cells you want to format with alternat row shading.Ĭlick the Conditional Formatting button on the Home menu It is a bit convoluted, but works well once you follow these steps. The way it works is to check to see if the current row number is an even number, and then format the even numbered rows with a formatting colour/shading of your choice. This method uses the conditional formatting option in Excel that allows you to set the format of a cell or range of cells based on the outcome of a formula. Configure alternate row shading in Excel 2011 for Mac This lesson shows you a quick and easy way to do it on Excel 2011 for Mac. There are a number of ways you can achieve this.
If you are working with large tables of data in Excel, you can make your spreadsheet easier to read by formatting alternate rows to be shaded a different colour.
