Many people would argue that they format the cells after what's in them not
where they are. However some can be done using conditional formatting using
formula and ROW() etc.. Here's an example

http://www.cpearson.com/excel/banding.htm


Regards,

Peo Sjoblom

"Lisa D.N.1" wrote:

In using the sort function on Excel (version 2002), the Sort function not
only sorts data, but also the cell formatting. This makes no sense to me. The
sort function should not effect (or at least it should be an option) the
borders and shading of the cells. I apply the shading of the cells to produce
an overall look of my worksheet. However, when I sort the data, the shading
is all jumbled up, therefore I cannot apply colors and shading the way I want
to on sheets that have data that needs to be sorted.