Why do inserted rows (or cells) come with their own background color?

Franziska S

When I insert a new row to one of my sheets it automatically comes with a gray background. All other rows have a white background. The only conditional formatting assigned to the sheet is to gray out the font once a date in a date-column is in the past.

In another sheet something similar happens: Some cells in the inserted row automatically get a gray background and, in addition, the font becomes bold. The only conditional formatting for that sheet is to gray out the whole row when a checkbox is manually checked (aka task done).

How come? How can I insert a row that has no (or a white) background with regular font (not bold). It's a minor inconvenience, but it bugs me 😏.

Genevieve P.

Hi @Franziska S

It sounds like at one point someone may have highlighted all columns/rows in the sheet to apply formatting. Then, to remove the formatting, the cells were selected and adjusted instead of the entire rows/columns. (This could have been done in a template version or previous version of the sheet before it was copied or made as a new sheet).

Try highlighting all columns (click a column name, scroll to the end of the sheet, Shift + Click the end column name) then manually apply a White background. This should allow newly created rows to have a white background as well.

If this hasn't helped, do the same but for the rows in your sheet, by clicking on the row numbers.

Cheers,

Genevieve