Timeline for To use or not to use "Zebra Stripes", or Alternating Row Colors for Tables
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
17 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Mar 5, 2019 at 16:11 | history | edited | Patrick McElhaney | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 101 characters in body
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| Jun 22, 2017 at 10:53 | comment | added | O. R. Mapper | ... columns rather than rows, rows being used for vertical spacing, several logical tables arranged on one worksheet, forms or other displays that are not directly row-based tables in the conventional sense, ...), and it's easy to explain why Excel does not generally use zebra stripes as a default. In a way, it optionally even sort of does use zebra stripes when rows or columns are selected. | |
| Jun 22, 2017 at 10:51 | comment | added | O. R. Mapper | @HenrikEkblom: "why doesn't Excel use zebra stripes in its standard mode (you have to create a table with custom striping)?" - I suspect for purely technical reasons: Unless explicitly specified otherwise, each cell uses the default background colour. Automatically initializing every second row across the entire sheet with a different background colour setting (or assigning a conditional formatting to all cells) would not simply be a different preset, but rather an entirely new feature. Combine that with the issue that there are many cases where the default would not work (a focus on ... | |
| May 17, 2013 at 14:44 | history | edited | Graham Herrli | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
deleted 42 characters in body
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| Feb 24, 2011 at 16:47 | vote | accept | sklein | ||
| Feb 18, 2011 at 13:41 | comment | added | Patrick McElhaney | @Joe Yeah, pretty much. :-) | |
| Feb 18, 2011 at 2:56 | comment | added | Joe Phillips | @Pat and by that you mean it completely reverses your original answer :p | |
| Feb 17, 2011 at 19:44 | vote | accept | sklein | ||
| Feb 17, 2011 at 19:44 | |||||
| Feb 17, 2011 at 14:44 | comment | added | Patrick McElhaney | Thanks, @sholsinger! Rewrote the answer to emphasize the newer article. | |
| Feb 17, 2011 at 14:40 | history | edited | Patrick McElhaney | CC BY-SA 2.5 |
Complete rewritten to take into account the newer article
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| Feb 17, 2011 at 9:25 | comment | added | Henrik Ekblom | This experiment shouldn't be used as a general guide since it lacks different scenarios (small datasets, big datasets, small gaps between columns/rows, big gaps etc). My gut feeling is that zebra stripes help, but on the other hand - why doesn't Excel use zebra stripes in its standard mode (you have to create a table with custom striping)? | |
| Feb 16, 2011 at 21:48 | comment | added | sholsinger | I believe this is the follow up article | |
| Feb 16, 2011 at 21:00 | comment | added | Bryan Matthews | I wonder if a rainbow-like styling has a more positive effect. Since each row has a distinct color it seems like they would be even easier to tie together. That obviously wouldn't be desirable in most cases though, for aesthetic reasons. | |
| Feb 16, 2011 at 18:47 | comment | added | Alex Feinman | Funny, I just read a study that said exactly the opposite. I'm going to see if I can dig it up. | |
| Feb 16, 2011 at 18:16 | history | edited | Patrick McElhaney | CC BY-SA 2.5 |
Removed redundant sentence
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| Feb 16, 2011 at 15:14 | history | edited | Patrick McElhaney | CC BY-SA 2.5 |
twitter > email
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| Feb 16, 2011 at 14:49 | history | answered | Patrick McElhaney | CC BY-SA 2.5 |