Excel 2003 - Formatting Question

[mab]

Hello,

Wondered if someone could tell me how I can alternate the background color (fill color) of rows in a spreadsheet. Say I wanted every other row to be gray starting at row 10. Thanks much.

[NBVC]

Select the rows starting at Row 10 and go to Format|Conditional Formatting.

Select Formula Is and enter formula: =MOD(ROW(),2)=0

Click Format and choose grey from the Pattern Tab.

Click Ok

Click Ok to finish

[martindwilson]

depends if you just want to colour them grey ,then colour row 10 grey select row 10 and 11 and use the fill handle in the bottom left of the first cell in row 11 and drag down(only works of course if cells are blank or youll copy all the data as well)

[mab]

Thanks very much for the information. Could I ask a silly question - can you explain what the formula MOD(ROW(),2)=0 means and how it works?

Thanks again!

[NBVC]

MOD() returns the remainder after number is divided by divisor

In this case the number is the current row number (Row()) and the divisor is 2...

so the answer will always be 1 or 0 depending on if you have an even or odd row number...

e.g =Mod(1,2)=1
=Mod(2,2)=0

So the conditional formula checks to see if the result of the Mod() formula is 1 or 0 and applies the formatting if the result is 0 (or even row number).

[mab]

Thanks a bunch for the explanation. Have a great day!

[NBVC]

You are quite welcome,

Please remember to mark your thread as Solved.

How to mark a thread Solved
Go to the first post
Click edit
Click Go Advanced
Just below the word Title you will see a dropdown with the word No prefix.
Change to Solved
Click Save