Format Borders
Borders can be added and removed. Colors and style can be changed.
Why format borders?
- Make the document more readable and understandable
- Emphasizing key points
The Borders menu is accessed in the Ribbon, in the Font group.
The button remembers the border you used last time.
Adding Borders
Borders are added by clicking the Borders button.
The default border is black underline.
Changing the border type, style or color is a choice you make.
The option button next to the Border command gives options for more types of borders.
Clicking the option button gives an overview of the different border options.
Example:
Border Colors
Colored borders are added by selecting a color before adding the border.
The color can be changed in the Border Color menu:
Example:
Border Style
Borders styles can be changed.
The menu is accessed in the Border Style menu.
Excel offers 6 different border styles:
- Solid line
- Dashed line
- Dotted line
- Medium line
- Thick line
- Double line
Chapter Summary
Borders can be added with different colors and styles. The border button remembers the border settings used the last time. The options are accessed from the border options button, next to the border button.
In the next chapter you will learn about Number formats.
Home / Excel Basics / How to Add Border in Excel
In Excel, a border is like a four-sided line that is added around the cell or range of cells. It is used to highlight a particular area and separate that from the rest of the values on the spreadsheet. Inserting a border draws the focus of the readers to the specific section, which enhances their interest in it.
In this tutorial, we will look at the ways to add borders along with their different types in Excel.
Steps to Apply Borders to a Cell in an Excel
- First, select the cell or group of cells where you want to add a border in your spreadsheet.
- Then, go to the home tab and in the “Font” group, click on the border button, which is right next to the bold, italic, and underline options.
- Once you click on the drop-down arrow of the border button, it will show you the list of borders.
- Now, select one from the list that you would like to apply around the selected cells.
Types of Borders in Excel
Here, you will learn about the different borders, which are categorized into 4 sections.
In the first section, there are Bottom, Top, Left, and Right borders. These borders will help you apply only one side border around the single or multiple cells. To apply this to the selected values, just click on any type of border.
In the following example, you can see the bottom border under the scale.
The second section has no border, all borders, outside borders, and thick outside border options. You can easily remove the border from the selected cell by clicking on the no border option.
Next, you have the option to add a border to all four sides of the selected cells. But, with all borders, the border lines separate the cell one by one, as shown in the picture below.
The third section contains many bottom borders. Like, as the bottom double border, thick bottom, top and bottom border, top and thick bottom border, and top and double bottom border.
You can use these options in highlighting or underlining important text or headlines.
Draw the Border
In the last section, you have the option to customize or create the border of your choice by using drawing tools. You can also change the existing border with this.
- Draw Border: Once you click the draw border option, it will convert your cursor into the drawing pencil. Now, click on the cell and drag the left mouse button to insert the border. It applies borders in both directions horizontally and vertically.
- Draw Border Grid: From the name justifies, it is also used to draw a border around the selected cells. But the main difference between the “Draw border” and “Draw border grid” is that the border grid draws the borders in the grid form (On Multiple Cells).
- Erase Border: The eraser helps you to erase the unwanted border line from your cells. To erase the border, you just have to drag the eraser on the line to remove it.
- Line Color: The most amazing thing is you can also change the color of the border to make it more attractive. When you click on the line color, then it will open the pop-up with a variety of colors. Once you pick anyone from this, then use the pencil to draw the colorful border.
- Line Style: To change the style of the borderline, click on the line style and choose one from the following styles.
Advanced Border Options
Choose the advanced borders for your selected cells. Follow the below steps:
- First, go to the “More Borders” option, which is at the bottom of the borders list.
- When you click, it will open a new dialog box called “Format Cells”.
- Here, you have more border options to insert on the sheet.
- And, once you select any given preset, it will also show you how it looks after applying it in the box.
- In the end, click “OK” to apply the selected range of cells.
Remove Borders in Excel
- First, you just need to select the area from which you want to remove the border.
- Then, go to the borders list and select the “No Border” option from there.
- Now, the border lines will disappear around the selected cells.
Shortcut to Add Border
There is another way to add a border by using the shortcut. But before using the shortcut, first, you need to select the range where you want to insert the border.
Then, press ALT ⇢ H ⇢ B simultaneously. Once you do this, you will get the list of borders. Along with this, there are some specific options to set any kind of border on a cell or a range.
You would like to set the Thick Bottom Border and the shortcut key for this is H, as you see in the above screenshot. Then, in this case, press ALT ⇢ H ⇢ B ⇢ H after selecting the data.
What are the Borders in Excel?
Borders in Excel are outlined in data tables or a specific range of cells. In Excel, borders are used to separate the data in borders from the rest of the text. It is a good way of representing data. In addition, it helps the user to look for specific data easily. These borders are available in the “Home” tab in the fonts section.
Table of contents
- What are the Borders in Excel?
- Explained
- How to Create and Add Borders in Excel? (with Examples)
- Example #1
- Example #2
- Example #3
- Example #4
- Things to Remember While Creating Borders in Excel
- Recommended Articles
Explained
We can add the border to a single cell or multiple cells. Borders are of different styles and can be used as per the requirement.
Borders help present the data set in a more presentable format in ExcelFormatting is a useful feature in Excel that allows you to change the appearance of the data in a worksheet. Formatting can be done in a variety of ways. For example, we can use the styles and format tab on the home tab to change the font of a cell or a table.read more.
We can use borders for tabular format data or headlines to emphasize a specific set of data or can be used to distinguish different sections.
- We can use it to define or divide the sections of a worksheet.
- We can use it to emphasize specific data.
- We can also make the data more understandable and presentable.
How to Create and Add Borders in Excel? (with Examples)
We can create and add borders to the specific set of data.
Example #1
We have data of marks of a student for three subjects of an annual examination. We will have to add the borders in this data to make it more presentable.
- Now, we must select the data we want to add to the borders.
- In the font group on the “Home” tab, click the down arrow next to the “Borders” button. You may see the drop-down list of borders, as shown in the figure below.
- We have different borders styles. Therefore, we may select the “OUTSIDE BORDERS” option for our data.
- We may find the result by using “OUTSIDE BORDERS” in the data.
Now, let us learn with some more examples.
Example #2
We have data of marks of a student for three subjects of an annual examination. We will have to add the borders in this data to make it more presentable.
- Data of marks of 5 students for three subjects in an annual examination is shown below.
- Now, we must select the data we want to add to the borders.
- Now, in the “Font” group on the “Home” tab, we need to click the down arrow next to the “Borders” button. As shown in the figure below, we may see the drop-down list of borders.
- Now that we have different border styles, we must select the “THICK OUTSIDE BORDERS” option for data.
- As a result, we may find the result by using “THICK OUTSIDE BORDERS” to the data shown below.
Example #3
We have data on the marks of a student for three subjects of an annual examination. We will have to add the borders in this data to make it more presentable.
- Data of marks of 5 students for three subjects in an annual examination is shown below.
- Now, select the data to which you want to add borders.
- Now, in the “Font” group on the “Home” tab, we may need to click the down arrow next to the “Borders” button. And we may see the drop-down list of borders as shown in the figure below. Then, select the “ALL BORDERS” options for the data.
- As a result, we may find the result by using “ALL BORDERS” to the data.
Example #4
We have data on the marks of a student for three subjects of an annual examination. We need to add the borders in this data to make it more presentable.
- Data of marks of 5 students for three subjects in an annual examination is shown below.
- Now, we must select the data we want to add borders.
- Now, in the “Font” group on the “Home” tab. Then, we need to click the down arrow next to the “Borders” button. As shown in the figure below, we may see the drop-down list of borders. Now, select the “ALL BORDERS” options for our data.
- We may now find the result using “ALL BORDERS” in the data.
- As shown in the figure below, we can change the border’s thickness per the requirement. Select the data you want to change the border’s thickness for this.
- We need to go to the border drop-down list and click “LINE STYLE.”
- Now, we get a list of line styles and use the style as per the requirements. We will use the second last line style for our data.
- We may get the result as shown below.
Things to Remember While Creating Borders in Excel
- We select cells where the border needs to be added.
- The borders differentiate the data separately.
- We can change border styles by the “Borders” icon in the “Font” tab.
Recommended Articles
This article has been a guide to Borders in Excel. Here, we discuss how to create/add cell borders in Excel using different options and examples. You may also look at these useful functions in Excel: –
- Borders in VBA Excel
- VBA Select Cell
- Shortcut for Excel Format Painter
- Format Number in VBA
- Marksheet in Excel
Reader Interactions
Excel Borders (Table of Contents)
- Borders in Excel
- How to add Borders in Excel?
Borders in Excel
Borders are the boxes formed by lines in the cell in Excel. By keeping borders, we can frame any data and provide them with a proper define limit. To distinguish specific values, outline summarized values or separate data in ranges of cells; you can add a border around cells.
How to add Borders in Excel?
Adding borders in Excel is very easy and useful to outline or separate specific data or highlight some values in a worksheet. Normally, we can easily add all top, bottom, left, or right borders for selected cells in Excel. Option for Borders is available in the Home menu, under the font section with the icon of Borders. We can also use shortcuts to apply borders in Excel.
You can download this Borders Excel Template here – Borders Excel Template
Let’s understand how to add Borders in Excel.
Example #1
For accessing Borders, go to Home and select the option as shown in the below screenshot under the Font section.
Once we click on the option of Borders shown above, we will have a list of all kind of borders provided by Microsoft in its drop-down option, as shown below.
Here we have categorized Borders into 4 sections. This would be easy to understand because all sections are different from each other.
The first section is a basic section with only Bottom, Top, Left, and Right Borders. By this, we can only create one side border only for one cell or multiple cells.
The second section is the full border section, which has No Border, All Borders, Outside Borders, and Thick Box Borders. By this, we can create a full border that can cover a cell and a table as well. We can also remove the border as well from the selected cell or table by clicking on No Border.
The third section is a combination of the bottom borders, Bottom Double Border, Thick Bottom Border, Top and Bottom Border, Top and Thick Bottom Border, and Top Double Bottom Border.
These types of double borders are majorly used in underlining the headlines or important texts.
The Fourth section has a customized border section, where we can draw or create a border as per our need or make changes in the existing border type. We can change the color, thickness of the border as well in this section of Borders.
Once we click on the More Borders Option at the bottom, we will see a new dialog box named Format Cells, which is a more advanced option for creating Borders. It is shown below.
Example #2
We have seen the basic function and use for all kinds of borders and how to create those in the previous example. Now we will see an example where we will choose and implement different Borders and see how those Borders in any table or data can be framed.
We have a data table, which has details of Owner, Block, and Apartment No. Now we will frame the Borders and see how the data would look like.
As row 2 is the headline, we will prefer a double bottom line selected from the third section.
And all cell will be covered with a box of All Borders which can be selected from the second section.
And if we select Thick Border from the second section, then the whole table will be bound to a perfect box, and selected data will automatically get highlighted. Once we are done with all the mentioned border type, our table would like this, as shown below.
As we can see, the complete data table is getting highlighted and ready to be presented in any form.
Example #3
There is another way to frame borders in excel. This is one of the shortcuts of accessing the functions available in excel. For accessing borders, the shortcut way first selects the data we want to frame with borders and then press ALT + H + B simultaneously to enable the border menu in Excel.
ALT + H will enable the Home menu, B will enable the borders.
Once we do that, we will get a list of all kinds of borders available in excel. And this list itself will have the specific keys mentioned to set for any border as shown and circled in the below screenshot.
We can navigate to our required Border type by pressing the Key highlighted in the above screenshot, or else we can use direction keys to scroll up and down to get the desired border frame. Let’s use All Borders for this case by pressing ALT+H+B+A simultaneously after selecting the data table. Once we do that, we will see the selected data is now framed with all borders. And each cell will be now having its own border in black lines, as shown.
Let’s frame one more border of another type with the same process. Select the data first and then press ALT+H+B+T Keys simultaneously. We will see that data is framed with Thick Borders, as shown in the below screenshot.
Pros of Print Borders in Excel
- Creating the border around the desired data table makes data presentable to anyone.
- Border frame in any data set is quite useful when printing the data or pasting the data in any other file. By this, we make the data look perfectly covered.
Things to Remember
- Borders can be used with the shortcut key Alt + H + B, which will directly take us to the Border option.
- Giving a border in any data table is very important. We must provide the border after every work so that the data set can be bound.
- Always make proper alignment so that once we frame the data with a border and use it in different sources, the column width will be automatically set.
Recommended Articles
This has been a guide to Borders in Excel. Here we discussed how to add Borders in Excel and use shortcuts for borders in Excel along with practical examples and a downloadable excel template. You can also go through our other suggested articles –
- LEFT Formula in Excel
- VBA Borders
- Format Cells in Excel
- Print Gridlines in Excel
Want to add borders in Excel to clearly display specific data tables? Borders play an important role in tabular data representation. It helps classify headings and contents of a table for better interpretation of information.
Adding or removing borders in Excel is simple and easy. This article is a complete guide to adding borders to any kind of tabular data available to you.
Recommended read: Steps to clear formatting in Excel
Let’s get started with learning to add or remove borders in Excel through this tutorial, step by step.
1. Create a database
First, we take a small database to begin adding borders to the tabular data. Here is an example of a tabular database-
2. Add borders to Excel database
This database can look more systematic and neat with borders around it. Here’s how to add borders-
- Select the complete database.
- Select the type of bordering you like for your table. We have selected All Borders.
- You can add a different kind of border for headings. We have selected Thick Outside Borders.
- Select No Border, if you want to remove applied borders on selected cells.
3. Drawing a border in Excel
You can have more border options like Top, Bottom, Left or Right border styles in excel for your tabular data.
Well, that’s not all, you can even draw your own borders the way you want them, under the Draw Borders section of border options in excel.
- Select Draw Border to draw border lines for one or more sides of a cell (left, right, top or bottom).
- Select Draw Border Grid to add borders to all sides of a cell at once.
- If you want to remove drawn borders from cells, you can either select the Erase Border option or No Border option after selecting those cells.
- To draw borders in custom colors, select Line Color.
4. More Border Options in Excel
The More Border Options can be found in the bottom of border options in excel which allows you to fully customize your borders the way you like.
You can even customize the setup to selecting a custom color and style for each side of your borders and grids manually.
- You can see how fully custom colored and styled is each side of the border in this image.
- To apply a color or style to a side select the color or style you like and click on the side of your border in the preview.
- To remove applied borders, select cells with borders and apply the No Border option.
Conclusion
This was all about adding or removing borders in Microsoft Excel to any kind of tabular data in hand. Use borders to beautify your tables and make them look presentable. Follow these steps to create a professional-looking database. Drop a comment if you got any questions regarding borders in Excel!