How can I create a table with alternating row colors?
I’ve seen this question asked before, but none of the answers worked for me. For example, one solution said to create cell styles, but I can’t find any such menu item.
My Libre Office version:
Version: 24.8.5.2 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: fddf2685c70b461e7832239a0162a77216259f22
CPU threads: 12; OS: Windows 11 X86_64 (10.0 build 26100); UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win
Locale: en-US (en_US); UI: en-US
Calc: CL threaded
Select table and try Menu / Table / AutoFormat Styles...
In addition to @sokol92 ,
Warning:
Use AutoFormat for tables only for simple tables where no cells are connected and you do not need additional formatting.
Well, that did the trick. Thanks.
But that raises another question: Why isn’t such an easy solution mentioned when one searches the help system? Never in a thousand years would I have thought of looking at “autoformat styles.”
And the placement of this function is not intuitive. A reasonable person (like me!) would look for it under “Format” rather than “Table.” Or maybe it belongs in both places.
In LibreOffice, autoformat styles are used both for Writer text tables (the table “remembers” its autoformat style) and for Calc cell ranges (the range does not “remember” the autoformat style).
In the Writer main menu, there is a separate Table item dedicated to text tables. In Calc, we find autoformat styles in the Format main menu item).
Ok. Understand. To me, though, having designed user interfaces for quite some time, it seems this interface is over-engineered. It shouldn’t be so hard to find simple things.
I’ll go back to my cave.
Alternatively:
Just a word of warning, the appearance is simple but the effects of AutoFormat can be long reaching.
Any time you add a row or make changes to the table structure, everything will be set back to those attributes defined in the AutoFormat. For this reason, you should take care to select only those formatting attributes that you need. For alternating row colours I would be inclined to select just the Pattern (maybe the borders too if you are happy with them) and untick the other boxes.
