Line Shading - every other row

Cindy Zobrist

Shade every other line on a sheet to identify easier which line you are working on, especially when your sheets are wide. 😉

Genevieve P.

Hi @Cindy Zobrist

Thanks for posting your idea!

If you want to set this up today, I currently use two helper columns to do something similar on my sheets.

• 1st step: add in an auto-number system column. I called mine "Row".
• 2nd step: add in a text/number column with a formula to return a 1 or 0 for every other row.

=IF(ISEVEN(VALUE(MATCH(Row@row, Row:Row, 0))), 1, 0)

3rd step: set up Conditional Formatting based on that helper column

Cheers,

Genevieve

Cindy Zobrist

@Genevieve P. Thank you - thank you - thank you!!!!! You are amazing! Thanks so much for your quick response and resolution! 😊

Genevieve P.

No problem! Glad I could help. 🙂

Marc Shecter

Enable sheet admin or owners to apply alternating row colors.

Requirements:

1. With a minimum of clicks (Google Sheets does it in two).
2. Enable a selection of styles
3. Colors continue to alternate after sorting or filtering, adding or removing rows.
4. Choose to include header and footer in the styles
5. Enable the creation of custom styles

See Google Sheets for the example I'm used to.

Alternating row colors makes grids of data easier to read. In Smartsheet formulaic solutions with helper columns are the only options available. And these options are not easy for novices to implement are complex to setup, and do not hold up to sorting or filtering.

Cindy Zobrist

Thanks for your time and help! :)

Kylie

Color banding every other row in a sheet helps tremendously with readability and accessibility. While it's possible to use helper columns to apply this type of color banding to an entire sheet, the banded formatting loses its functionality when filters are engaged or rows are re-sorted. It would be great to have the option to apply dynamic row banding to Smartsheet grids, similar to those in Excel, where the color banding maintains an every-other-row format even when grid hierarchy changes via filters, addition of new rows, application of different sorting rules, etc.

Rick Olsen

One way to possibly do this on Smartsheet's side is to surface the dynamic row number, like we do with the Latest Comment. Then no matter if you delete a line, sort, etc., that column would be available. Then we could use the method Genevieve described above using the odd/even Conditional Formatting with it breaking.