How To Delete Alternate Rows In Excel

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One of the many versatile features of Microsoft Excel is the ability to delete alternate rows. This can come in handy when dealing with a large dataset, where you want to thin out the data and only keep every second, third, or nth row. So, let’s explore how to delete alternate rows in Excel.

Method 1: Using Excel’s ‘Go To Special’ function

This is a straightforward method which doesn’t involve any formula or VBA code.

  1. First, select the range of cells in which you want to delete alternate rows.
  2. Press F5 on your keyboard. This will open the ‘Go To’ dialog box.
  3. In the ‘Go To’ dialog box, click on the ‘Special…’ button at the bottom. This will open the ‘Go To Special’ dialog box.
  4. In the ‘Go To Special’ dialog box, select the option ‘Rows’ and then ‘Odd’ or ‘Even’ depending on which rows you want to delete.
  5. Click OK. This will select all the alternate rows in the selected range.
  6. Now, right-click on one of the selected cells and choose ‘Delete Row’ from the context menu.

Method 2: Using VBA code

If you are comfortable with VBA, you can use the following code to delete alternate rows:

    Sub DeleteAlternateRows()
        Dim rng As Range
        Dim i As Long
        
        Set rng = ThisWorkbook.Sheets("Sheet1").Range("A1:A20")
        
        For i = rng.Rows.Count To 1 Step -2
            rng.Rows(i).EntireRow.Delete
        Next i
    End Sub

This code will delete every second row in the range A1:A20 on Sheet1. You can adjust the range and sheet name according to your needs.

Conclusion

Deleting alternate rows in Excel can be done with just a few clicks or with a simple VBA code. Both methods are efficient and can save a lot of time when dealing with large datasets. It’s just one of the many ways Excel can help streamline your data analysis and manipulation tasks.