Numbers delete every other row

When dealing with databases in Excel, you might come across spreadsheets that have data organized in particular patterns.

For example, census data usually consists of alternating columns of actual data and standard errors.

To get the gist of the data, you often need to select and separate out the columns containing the actual data.

In this Excel tutorial, I will show you two ways in which you can select alternate columns in Excel – a commonly known way, which is not that foolproof and a lesser-known way, which is actually quite foolproof, irrespective of the size of your data.

Towards the end of the article, we will also see how to select every nth column and how you can use the selected columns.

Selecting Every Other Column in Excel using the Traditional Way

The traditional (and more commonly used) way of selecting alternate columns in Excel involves manually selecting each column, in the following way:

1. Select the first column by either selecting the column header or dragging down the column.
2. Press the CTRL key on the keyboard and select the next alternate column in t
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