> What a bother! Who designs applications this way? Very frustrating.
Personally, I like XL looking Mac-like in that way, and it's been that
way for many versions. However, lots of people don't.
Take a look at Chip Pearson's RowLiner add-in:
http://cpearson.com/excel/rowliner.htm
or, if you use colored backgrounds in your cells, my technique can
http://mcgimpsey.com/excel/highlightrow.html#HiLiteRetainColor
be generalized to work in more than one workbook.