FIRST THING: Super Cool Spreadsheet Tips
Week 1: Highlighting every other row for easy readability using Conditional Formatting
OK, here is one that I build into every spreadsheet I create. I format my rows so that they always have alternating colors. This makes it super easy to read, both on screen and in printed format. By doing this using Conditional Formatting and a formula based rule, the rows always update even when I insert or delete rows in my sheet. I’ll do a deeper dive on Conditional Formatting in the weeks to come, but for now here is the basic trick.
- Select your entire active sheet (easiest way to do this is to click the cornerstone between the A and the 1). By the way, clicking the cornerstone is slightly different than hitting Ctrl+A. In spreadsheets, Ctrl+A selects all the cells down to the lowest, most right hand cell that has some data in it. The cornerstone selects every cell in the sheet, regardless of whether the cell is empty or not.
- Now head up to Format and click on Conditional formatting.
- Select “Add new rule.” Under the “Format cells if…” dropdown menu, select “Custom formula is.”
- To apply a color to all even rows, type =ISEVEN(ROW()). To apply the rule to odd rows, type =ISODD(ROW()). Click the paint bucket icon to change the color. I usually apply to Odd rows because I want my header row to be a color.
- That’s all there is to this one. Check out this link from BetterCloud for a little more info and a video tutorial.
SECOND THING: Using Templates
This Second Thing tip is a logical extension of the First Thing above. Rather than constantly format every new spreadsheet, doc, slide presentation you build, you can create a master copy and use that as a template. I have added a template in Sheets called DeegsSheets Template (very original, I know) in our WLA Template Gallery. That sheet has the above ‘every other row formatting’, along with the first row and column frozen and a few other simple formatting preferences built in. To access WLA Templates, you can either go to Sheets (or Docs or Slides) and then choose the pre-loaded templates that first appear…
OR…click on the Template Gallery (our WLA Slides Gallery is shown below) and view both WLA specific and globally shared Templates from across the Google-verse.
We’ll be adding more Templates throughout this school year. If you have some cool Google Drive resources you’d like to share as Templates, let me know and we’ll add them to Gallery as well.
THIRD THING: Fake Social Media Tools
Fake social media profiles are a fun digital diversion and can be used in place of a more traditional report on a historical person or event. This page from Lee High School in Fairfax County (sorry, they’re not woke enough yet to change their high school’s name) includes links to PowerPoint templates for fake Social Media pages (credit to MS History teacher Bradley Akans) and a link to the Fakebook online tool from Classtools.net. In addition, I converted the fake social media templates to Google Slides and loaded them to our WLA Slides Template Gallery for easy access. Scroll down to the In-Class section to find the new templates. This project could be used in any classroom (think social media account for a chemical element, different functions, fictional characters from a novel, etc.). Let me know how it goes if you use any of these in your classroom.