Clean borders are what make a sheet look finished and printable. Two shortcuts add and remove them instantly, so you can tidy a report in seconds.
Ctrl+Shift+&
Step by step
- Select the cells you want to outline.
- Press Ctrl+Shift+& to put a border around the outside of the selection.
- To remove every border from the selection, press Ctrl+Shift+_ (underscore).
Tips & troubleshooting
- Ctrl+Shift+& is Ctrl+Shift+7 on most keyboards, and Ctrl+Shift+_ is Ctrl+Shift+Minus.
- For inside borders, thicker lines or colours, press Ctrl+1 and use the Border tab.
More border options from the keyboard
The two Ctrl shortcuts only handle the outline. The Borders menu on the Home tab has the rest: press Alt, H, B and then one more key.
- A: All Borders, a full grid around every cell.
- S: Outside Borders.
- T: Thick Outside Borders.
- O: Bottom Border, the usual choice under a header row.
- N: No Border.
- M: More Borders, which opens the Border tab of Format Cells for colours, line styles and diagonals.
Borders are not gridlines
The faint grey lines on a worksheet are gridlines. They are a guide for the screen and do not print unless you tick Print under Gridlines on the Page Layout tab. Borders are formatting you apply, and they always print.
A common finishing touch for a report is to add borders where they help and then hide the gridlines altogether by unticking View, Gridlines. The page looks cleaner and the borders stand out.
Use borders sparingly
- A line under the headings and another above the totals is usually enough. A full grid makes numbers harder to read.
- Use a thin, light grey line for row separators and keep black for the outline.
- Borders belong to cells, so they travel when you sort, copy or move data. If the design needs stripes that survive sorting, use an Excel table style instead.
On a Mac
In Excel for Mac press Cmd+Option+0 to add an outline border.