Displaying Table Gridlines

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated March 12, 2024)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021

Tables are often used to display all sorts of information in a document. If you remove the borders of a table, however, it can be difficult to see where the table is located and where the edges of each cell are. For these instances, Word allows you to display gridlines around the table. The purpose of these gridlines is to mark the boundaries of the table and each cell in the table when you have the table formatted for no border.

You can turn gridlines on by placing the insertion point within a table and then displaying the Layout tab of the ribbon. In the Table group, click the View Gridlines tool. When you later want to turn gridlines off, again follow the same steps.

It should be noted that you may not see any visible difference in the appearance of your tables when you turn the gridlines on or off. The reason is simple—tables, by default, have borders turned on, and the borders obscure the gridlines that Word may display. To see the gridlines, you'll want to remove any border from your table.

The gridlines setting is not set on a per-table basis. In other words, if you turn the gridlines off anywhere in a document (in or out of a table), it is turned off throughout the entire document.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (6038) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Cycling through Colors

Excel includes quite a few tools that are not normally accessible through the various toolbars. One such esoteric tool is ...

Discover More

Sorting Tabular Tables

Some people like to format simple tables using tabs instead of using Word's table editor. When it comes time to sort such ...

Discover More

Tracking Changes to Templates

Wouldn't it be great to be able to track what changes are made to a template, over time? Unfortunately, Word doesn't ...

Discover More

Create Custom Apps with VBA! Discover how to extend the capabilities of Office 365 applications with VBA programming. Written in clear terms and understandable language, the book includes systematic tutorials and contains both intermediate and advanced content for experienced VB developers. Designed to be comprehensive, the book addresses not just one Office application, but the entire Office suite. Check out Mastering VBA for Microsoft Office 365 today!

More WordTips (ribbon)

Changing Spacing Between Table Cells

Need to adjust the space between individual cells in a table? Word gives you a good deal of control over this spacing, as ...

Discover More

Keeping Table Rows Together

When you create a table that extends beyond a single page, you may want to make sure that the information in a table row ...

Discover More

Copying All Tables to a New Document

Need to make a copy of every single table in a document? There's a quick and easy way to do it using the macro in this tip.

Discover More

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is 6 - 5?

2021-04-01 12:24:09

glnz

Allen - is there a pre-dedicated shortcut key for this? I thought I had ALT + A,G, but that is not working any more. Thanks.

2020-09-10 17:01:39

Jana

Is there a way to turn on and off table gridlines in the online version of Word?

This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the ribbon interface (Word 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the menu interface.