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Shade Alternating Rows of a Spreadsheet
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In Excel 2003, position your cursor at A1 and press Ctrl+A to select all the cells on the worksheet.

Bonus: If you subsequently add or delete columns within that range, the color pattern will automatically adjust to the size you select. And if you replace the word ROW in the formula with COLUMN, the color scheme will be installed for every other column instead of every other row.
In Excel 2007, follow the same basic procedure. On the Home ribbon, go to Conditional Formatting and New Rule.
Click on Use formula to determine which cells to format and enter the same formula as above (see screenshot below).

Then click on Format, the Fill tab and select a color.