Introduction:
Borders in Excel are strong tools of formatting that help arrange your data in a meaningful manner and are easier to read. It can be used for pointing out important data or dividing different sections of the data. It gives the attractiveness of a better-looking spreadsheet. This post will guide you to know how to use borders when you want to highlight specific cells, tables, or remove unwanted lines that separate your data into parts. This tutorial takes you through the steps on how to create, alter, and delete borders in Excel so that your data looks professional and easy to comprehend.
1. How to Add Borders in Excel
Borders in Excel can easily be added for an individual cell, a set of cells, rows, columns, or even on the whole worksheet. Let’s have a look.
Option – Position the cursor on the cells and drag across them.
Click the “Home” tab of the Ribbon
Click the Font group. There, you will see the Borders icon, marked by an outline rectangle.
Click the dropdown arrow to the right of the Borders icon to view a menu of border options. Here you can find such choices as Bottom Border, Top Border, Left Border, Right Border, All Borders, Outside Borders, and Thick Box Border.
Having selected the border type, it would automatically apply to selected cells. Excel provides a couple of simple options such as borders across top or bottom or borders for both, and there are several more complex ones: for example, diagonal borders, thick box borders. If you want something more sophisticated, here you can use “More Borders” to enter a lot of advanced formatting options.
2. Customize borders:
In order to make borders even more particular, you can change line style, width, and color. To do that follow these steps:
– Select the cells you want to change border.
– Then click on “Borders” pull-down from “Home tab” then click on “More Borders”. This will take you to the “Format Cells” dialog box under the “Border” tab.
– Under “Line”, choose a line style and color. A solid and dotted border lines are provided in various thicknesses.
– Under “Border”, use the preview diagram or the buttons to apply the border on top, bottom, left, right or diagonal.
This can most appropriately be used to attract attention to certain parts of your data. For example, you might want outer border edges of a table highlighted with thick colored borders while the inner rows and columns highlighted with lighter borders. Once you decide what you want, you could click “OK” to make the border settings apply for your selection.
3. How to Remove Borders in Excel:
Removing borders in Excel is quite an easy operation and can be followed according to the following:
– Select the cells whose borders you wish to eliminate.
– In the “Home” tab, under “Borders”, click on “No Border.”
You can thus completely clear off all borders applied on selected cells and work anew. In case you just want to delete certain individual borders, go to “Format Cells,” open “More Borders,” cancel check on particular lines shown in preview, and press “OK”.
4. Best Practices of Border Management:
Apply borders around entire tables: With “All Borders” or “Outside Borders,” you can format tables quickly.
The Format Painter: Once you have applied borders to one block of cells, you can get the same borders quickly applied to other cells by using the Format Painter tool. Select the cells that are formatted and navigate to the “Home Tab” then click “Format Painter” and drag over the other cells.
– Keyboard Shortcuts: Microsoft Excel also offers shortcuts in order to save time, for example, using Ctrl + Shift + and while trying to apply an outline border to selected cells means to remove all borders in cells by pressing Ctrl + Shift + _.
Conclusion:
Borders are a tool in Microsoft Excel used to create formatted, easy-to-read spreadsheets. Learn how to use and format borders, including taking borders off and make the not only look nice, but function better while using the data, present as well as interpret at your discretion. Highlights the importance of data or organizes massive amounts of data using borders; it makes it sparkle by adding clarity and brilliance to those spreadsheets. It’s guaranteed that practicing makes handling the borders easier.