Can you combine these two formulas?

so I'm trying to make a rule that auto-colors every other category, and I came up with some formulas that work for it.

However, since I am not very familiar with countif(), I haven't been able to come up with a way to nest them.

I used:

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in a helper column, then:

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to color it in the conditional formatting. It works perfectly, but I am wondering if there's a way to do this without a helper column. I am open to revamping my formulas if there is a more efficient way to accomplish this also.

Try this for the helper...
=IF(A2=A1,B1,IF(B1=1,0,1))

Then this for the CF...
=$B2=1

No need for a helper.

Conditional Formatting

Use this formula:

=MOD(SUMPRODUCT(--($A$1:$A1<>$A$2:$A2)),2)<1

Hey, we've got an all PA thread going here!

Go Steelers lol

Notice how the ranges are offset.

So, it's counting how many cells are not equal to the cell below. For each group the count will be the same:

Header
x = 1
x = 1
y = 2
z = 3
z = 3
z = 3

Then we can test the count for even or odd and apply the format based on that condition.

You're welcome. Thanks for the feedback!

Happy to help and thanks for the feedback