I have been working on a workbook where I'm entering (by hand) a couple
hundred rows of data in three columns. When I reach a line of data that I do
not need to review further, I enter it, highlight the three cells in which
I've entered data, and change the text color to gray. I'll then hit enter and
begin typing the data for the next row.

The problem is that sometimes after I've changed the text color on the
previous row, some or all of the cells in the subsequent row will also get
changed from black (auto) to gray. As I enter the data, the text is black,
but when I tab to the next cell, the text changes to gray.

Even if I highlight all the blank rows from my last line of data to the
bottom of the spreadsheet (row 65536) and select black (auto) for the color,
it will continue to happen.

I do not have any conditional formatting rules in place and the default
style setting is black (auto) text. This is Excel 2003 on XP Professional
2002 SP3