Shading Rows for Ease in Reading Output

Those who have been around computers long enough may remember the days of green-bar paper. That's not to slight any places that may still be using green-bar; its just that the hey-day of such paper seems to be past. The need for such paper, particularly when dealing with numeric printouts, is still present however.

What green-bar paper did (for those who don't know) was provide a visual cue for your eyes so that you could easily follow a row of numbers across the width of the paper, without the human tendency of skipping from one row to another. You may still use some device to help you read rows of numbers--for instance, a ruler held under the row to guide your eyes.

If you find yourself pulling out the ruler more often or wishing for the return of green-bar paper, then you may be interested in a little macro I whipped up to help. The following macro, ShadeRows, will shade every fifth row in the rows you select. This means that the first, sixth, eleventh, and so on rows will be shaded.

Sub ShadeRows()
    Dim iStart As Integer
    Dim iEnd As Integer
    Dim iStep As Integer, J As Integer

    iStep = 5         'Shade every 5th row
    Application.ScreenUpdating = False
    iStart = 1
    iEnd = Selection.Rows.Count

    For J = iStart To iEnd Step iStep
        With Selection.Rows(J).Interior
            .ColorIndex = 15
            .Pattern = xlSolid
            .PatternColorIndex = xlAutomatic
        End With
    Next J
    Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

To run the macro, just select the rows you want to affect, and then run it. If you want to change the interval at which rows are shaded, change the iStep value from 5 to some other value. For instance, if you wanted every other row shaded, you would change iStep = 5 to iStep = 2.