Select all of the cells (select the rows is probably quickest way) then use
Format | Conditional Formatting
in the first dialog that comes up, choose
[Cell Value Is]
Then choose [not between]
and enter 0 into both of the parameters so that the line reads:
Cell Value Is | not between | 0 | and | 0
sounds kind of lame, but keeps you from having to write a less than zero and
a greater than zero condition.
Then click the [Format...] button and the [Patterns] tab and choose the
color for your shading.

Click [OK] to make it permanent.

The only problem you'll have with this is that cells with zero in them will
not get shaded.

If your numbers never go outside of a certain range (say they are all
positive) then you can try other variations of Conditional Formatting to just
catch the ones you're interested in, including zero. For example, if numbers
are never negative, then you could choose the [greater than or equal to]
option and zero as the value.
"mrharpo2u" wrote:

i havea spread sheet document with over 25K entries spreading six rows. how
can i shade only the cells hat have numbers in them and leave the blank cells
with out shade with out doing it each numbered cell at a time. there has to
be a faster way