Why are borders not showing on print preview?

Hi,

Just a thought, have you actually printed it off, or are you just looking at
print preview. As sometimes when I look at print preview I can't see the
borders on things, but if I zoom in I can see the borders and when I print it
off the borders are there.

"Claire" wrote:

Hi,

I'm using Excel 2003 and I have a spreadsheet which I have set up so that
'gridlines', 'black and white' and 'draft' are unchecked. The cells where
information is to be entered have black borders.

When I select print preview, most of the cells are fine but there are 5 rows
where the borders aren't showing at all. They're not even together, they're
throughout the spreadsheet!

I've tried manually drawing each border, I've tried changing the colour but
it doesn't seem to work.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks in advance

Claire

Users are often confused because they believe they have applied borders to a table, but those borders do not print.

If most of the borders are okay and just the bottom border (or right border on a landscape page) is not printing, the problem is probably that they are in your printer�s unprintable area.

If the borders don�t print at all, in rare cases the problem may also be due to the printer driver (especially if you�re using a text printer that can�t print graphics). The most likely explanation, however, is that you have confused borders and gridlines.

In grade school you probably learned that the equator is �an imaginary line� around the center of the earth. Gridlines, like the equator, are �imaginary lines,� a visual representation of the table cell boundaries. They do not print.

Display of table gridlines is toggled on and off as follows:

• Word 2003 and earlier: Table | Show/Hide Gridlines

• Word 2007 and above:  Table Tools | Layout | Table | View Gridlines.

Gridlines are displayed in both Normal (Draft) and Print Layout views but not in Print Preview because they do not print. In Print Layout view, even if you have table gridlines hidden, you will see a dotted line representing cell boundaries if you have �Text boundaries� enabled, as follows:

• Word 2003 and earlier: Tools | Options | View

• Word 2007: Office Button | Word Options | Advanced: Show document content: Show text boundaries

• Word 2010 and above: File | Options | Advanced: Show document content: Show text boundaries

If you want table borders that print, you will need to apply borders to the table or selected cells or sides of cells. For more on this, see Run for the border.

Users often don�t realize that Word uses tables to format labels. If you choose �New Document� on the Labels tab of the Tools | Envelopes and Labels dialog (Mailings | Create | Labels in Word 2007 and above), the page you get will be a sheet of labels set up as a table. If you don�t have table gridlines displayed, it will appear to be an entirely blank page. With gridlines displayed, you will see the label structure. If you also display nonprinting characters, you can see the end-of-cell markers � (even without the gridlines), which give you another clue.

If you want to be able to toggle table gridlines on and off easily, you may want to add a Gridlines button to a toolbar or the Quick Access Toolbar, as follows:

• Word 2003 and earlier: Go to Tools | Customize. On the Commands tab, select Table under Categories and Gridlines under Commands. Drag the button to a toolbar (next to Insert Table on the Standard toolbar is a logical place). Since the button is a toggle, it has (as on the Table menu) two button faces and two ScreenTips:

• Word 2007 and above: Right-click on the View Gridlines button on the Ribbon and choose �Add to Quick Access Toolbar.� This button will also be a toggle with the same button face as above.

This article copyright � 2000, 2017 by Suzanne S. Barnhill. This article was originally published on the Word MVP FAQ site.

In order to decorate our data while working with Microsoft Excel, we often use tables. Normally, the data are organized in different rows and columns in a table within a certain border. It is possible to happen to anyone that in time of Print preview, the table border is not available. If you are looking for the solution to the problem table border not showing in Print Preview, you will be glad to know that you have come to the right place for the solution. I am going to explain 2 simple solutions to this problem in this article. I hope it will be very helpful for you.

For more clarification, I am going to use a dataset of Annual Exam Results in the Student, Physics, Chemistry, and Math columns.

Table of Contents hide

Download Practice Workbook

2 Simple Solutions for Table Border Not Showing in Print Preview

1. Using Gridlines as Table Border in Print

2. Showing Border Using Borders from Home Tab

Practice Section

Conclusion

Related Articles

Download Practice Workbook

Table Border not Showing.xlsx

2 Simple Solutions for Table Border Not Showing in Print Preview

There may be several reasons for the table border not showing in the preview (or after print) while printing it, like borders not selected, gridlines are not set to print. Let’s see how to deal with the issue and show the borders.

1. Using Gridlines as Table Border in Print

Gridlines are the default format in Excel Worksheet. We can use these gridlines as border to solve the problem of table border not showing in Print Preview. For this, you need to follow some sequential processes. They are described in the below section.

Steps:

• First of all, go to the Page Layout tab.
• Check the Print box from the Gridlines option in the ribbon.

• Followingly, select the whole table. In this case, my table range is B4:E11.
• Click on the Page Layout tab.
• Choose Print Area from the ribbon.
• Next, pick the Set Print Area This command will choose the selected area for Print.

• After that, go to the File tab.
• From the available options, select Print.

Alternatively, you can press CTRL + P to have the Print Preview.

We can see in the Print Preview section that the Gridlines have worked there as the table border.

Read More: How to Remove Page Border in Excel (3 Methods)

Similar Readings

• How to Insert Border in Excel (5 Simple Methods)
• How to Add Cell Borders Inside and Outside in Excel (5 Methods)

2. Showing Border Using Borders from Home Tab

We can set the table border manually to solve this problem. This is not a complicated process at all. The steps are simplified in the following section.

Steps:

• Firstly, select the whole table. Here, my table range is B4:E11.
• Next, click on the Home tab.
• Choose the Borders option from the ribbon.
• From the available options, pick a type that covers the whole table. I have picked the Thick Outside Borders options.

• Now, go to the Page Layout tab.
• Then, click on Print Area from the ribbon.
• Next, pick the Set Print Area This command will choose the selected area for Print.

• Followingly, go to the File tab.
• Select Print from the available options.

Now, in the Print Preview section, we can see our desired table border.

Read More: How to Print Borders at Page Break in Excel (2 Quick Methods)

Practice Section

You can practice here. Practice will improve your efficiency in solving this problem.

Conclusion

At the end, I like to add that I have tried to explain 2 simple solutions for the table border not showing in Print Preview problem in this article. It will be a matter of great pleasure for me if this article could help any Excel user even a little. For any further queries, comment below. You can visit our Exceldemy site for more details on Excel.

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