How to delete every other row on an Excel worksheet

This article contains a sample Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications macro that you can use to delete every other row in a selected range on a Microsoft Excel worksheet.

Microsoft provides programming examples for illustration only, without warranty either expressed or implied. This includes, but is not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. This article assumes that you are familiar with the programming language that is being demonstrated and with the tools that are used to create and to debug procedures. Microsoft support engineers can help explain the functionality of a particular procedure, but they will not modify these examples to provide added functionality or construct procedures to meet your specific requirements. To use the following macro, set up an Excel workbook as follows:

1. Create a new Microsoft Excel workbook.
2. In a new worksheet, in the range A1:A9, type the numbers 1 to 5, skipping rows, as in the following example:

         A1: 1
         A2:
         A3: 2
         A4:
         A5: 3
         A6:
         A7: 4
         A8:
         A9: 5
   					

3. On the Tools menu, point to Macro, and then click Visual Basic Editor.
   
   Note In Microsoft Office Excel 2007, click Visual Basic in the Code group on the Developer tab.
4. On the Insert menu, click Module.
5. In the new module, type the following macro:

   Sub Delete_Every_Other_Row()
   
      ' Dimension variables.
      Y = False              ' Change this to True if you want to
                             ' delete rows 1, 3, 5, and so on.
      I = 1
      Set xRng = Selection
   
      ' Loop once for every row in the selection.
      For xCounter = 1 To xRng.Rows.Count
   
          ' If Y is True, then...
          If Y = True Then
   
              ' ...delete an entire row of cells.
              xRng.Cells(I).EntireRow.Delete
   
          ' Otherwise...
          Else
   
              ' ...increment I by one so we can cycle through range.
              I = I + 1
   
          End If
   
          ' If Y is True, make it False; if Y is False, make it True.
          Y = Not Y
   
      Next xCounter
   
   End Sub
   						

6. Switch to the worksheet that contains the data, and then select the range A1:A9.
7. To run the macro, point to Macro on the Tools menu, and then click Macros.
   
   Note In Excel 2007, click Macros in the Code group on the Developer tab.
   
   Note To display the Developer tab in the Ribbon, click the Microsoft Office Button, click Excel Options, click the Popular category, click to select the Show Developer tab in the Ribbon check box, and then click OK.
8. Select the Delete_Every_Other_Row macro, and then click Run.

This macro will delete every other row, starting with the second row of the selection.

Note If you have a list of data that contains multiple columns, select only the first column of data, and then run the macro.