Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Word in Microsoft 365. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Adding Borders to Cell Contents.

Adding Borders to Cell Contents

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated May 20, 2023)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Word in Microsoft 365

You may already know how to add a border to a cell in a Word table. You may not know that you can go beyond such a border and add a border to the contents of a cell. You can add such a border by following these steps:

Position the insertion point within the cell that contains the text you want to border. (You don't need to select the text or the cell.)
Display the Home tab of the ribbon.
Click the down-arrow next to the Border tool in the Paragraph group, and then choose Borders and Shading from the resulting drop-down list. Word displays the Borders and Shading dialog box. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Borders and Shading dialog box.

Use the controls in the dialog box to add the borders you desire.
Using the Apply To drop-down list, select Paragraph.
Click on OK.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (11513) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Word in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Adding Borders to Cell Contents.

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

Accessing Paragraphs in a Macro

Need to process a document, paragraph by paragraph, in a macro? It's easy to do once you understand that Word's object ...

Discover More

Using the Mouse to Adjust Your View of 3-D Graphs

Want to adjust the perspective from which your 3-D graph is viewed? Excel allows you to use the mouse to rotate the graph ...

Discover More

Limiting Lines in a Table Cell

When creating tables, Word automatically sets the size of the cells. But what if you want to make sure each cell is a ...

Discover More

The First and Last Word on Word! Bestselling For Dummies author Dan Gookin puts his usual fun and friendly candor back to work to show you how to navigate Word 2019. Spend more time working and less time trying to figure it all out! Check out Word 2019 For Dummies today!

More WordTips (ribbon)

Changing Paragraph Borders

Word allows you to easily add borders to a paragraph of text. If you want, you can even change each side of the border to ...

Discover More

Adding Borders to Paragraphs

Word allows you to quickly and easily add different types of borders to your paragraphs. Borders, background shading, and ...

Discover More

Setting the Distance between Text and Borders

Add a border around a piece of text (such as a paragraph), and Word makes some assumptions about the placement of that ...

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 two minus 1?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

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.