Apply or remove cell borders

If the predefined borders that are provided in Excel don't meet your needs, you can draw your own borders exactly where you want them and erase them as needed.

What do you want to do?

Draw cell borders

Erase cell borders

Draw cell borders

  1. To display the Borders toolbar (toolbar: A bar with buttons and options that you use to carry out commands. To display a toolbar, press ALT and then SHIFT+F10.), click the arrow next to Borders Button image on the Formatting toolbar, and then click Draw Borders Button image.
  2. On the Borders toolbar, choose a style and line color for your borders.
    • Click the arrow next to Line Style Button image and then click the style that you want to use.
    • Click Line Color Button image and then click the color that you want to use.
  3. On the Borders toolbar, click the arrow next to Draw Border Button image to choose which drawing tool to use.
    • To draw borders around only the outside of a selection of cells, click Draw Border Button image.

The mouse pointer will turn into a draw border tool Icon image.

  • To draw individual borders around every cell that you select, click Draw Border Grid Button image.

The mouse pointer will turn into a draw border grid tool Icon image.

  1. Tip    You can use either tool to draw a border on just one side of a cell. Instead of dragging the tool across a cell, simply click the edge where you want the line to appear.

 Notes 

  • If a cell contains rotated text, the border will appear rotated to the same degree as the text.
  • Holding the CTRL key temporarily switches between the draw border mode and draw border grid mode.

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Erase cell borders

  1. To display the Borders toolbar (toolbar: A bar with buttons and options that you use to carry out commands. To display a toolbar, press ALT and then SHIFT+F10.), click the arrow next to Borders Button image on the Formatting toolbar, and then click Draw Borders Button image.
  2. On the Borders toolbar, click Erase Border Button Image.

The mouse pointer will turn into an eraser tool Icon image.

  1. To remove borders, do one of the following:
    • To remove a single border, click that border with the eraser tool Icon image.
    • To remove more than one border, drag the eraser tool Icon image across the borders that you want to remove.
  2. To stop erasing borders, click Erase Border on the Borders toolbar again, so that the eraser tool is no longer displayed.

 Note   Holding the CTRL key temporarily switches between the Erase Border mode and Erase Border Grid mode.

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Applies to:
Excel 2003