Unable to add rows in Excel 2007 after 'Format as table'

Question

Hi
The problem for me was that I had used the 'format as table' option in my spreadsheet, to alternate row colors. Apparently doing so creates a different kind of table where you cannot insert rows. Took me a while to figure out, surfed a lot of sites trying
to find answers, nothing worked. It seems impossible to undo whatever is done when you choose the 'format as table' option. Everything was visible, nothing was locked, nothing was protected, nothing was merged.
To fix it, I had to copy my data into a new table and use the conditional formatting option, with a formula that worked in prior versions of Excel.
Is there another way to fix this problem? What does 'format as table' does?
yo

Answer 1

You are correct. Selecting colums does use "all" of the available rows on the sheet and you can't add new rows because you get an error it would move data off of the sheet. Your workaround will work, but if you happen to just select the columns
and then format as table you can then select the last empty row, Ctrl+Shift+End to highlight all the rows to the end, then go to the Home menu and drop down Delete (from the Cells menu) and then select Delete Sheet Rows. This will free up all the space
you need. If you right click and select delete it will only delete the row that you right clicked on (trust me...trial and error).