1. i'd like to have the style (alternating blue shades) applied to my cells, but i don't want it to function as a table (because then i wouldn't be able to split cells within my table). how can this be achieved?



2. i have multiple tables/content within 1 sheet, and often some cells have a lot of content that forces me to expand the cell width. This in turn affects the formatting of the other tables I have (on the right and below the original table). is there any way i could use to retain proper width on the other 2 tables, while still keeping the original table (with long text) as-is?

Thanks in advance for your help!