Excel: Alternate Row Shading

Adding colors and shading to Excel spreadsheets, especially those with a lot of data in them, can make reading them much easier. Here's how you can set up every other column or row to display shading.

1. Select the group of cells (aka the range) that you want to shade.
   
2. Go to Format > Conditional Formatting
3. In that Conditional Formatting dialog box, change the drop down to display  Formula Is and type this formula in the field:
   
   To shade rows enter this formula:
     =mod(row(),2)=0
   To shade columns enter this one:
     =mod(column(),2=0
   To shade checkerboard style enter:
    =mod(row(),2) =mod(column(),2)
4. Click the Format button and in the Format Cells dialog box, click the Patterns tab.
5. Select a color and click OK.