Adding borders

There are two ways - a simple way using a button and a more complex way using the menus - of adding borders to a cell or a range of cells in your spreadsheet.

To add a border to a cell or a range of cells using the button:

  1. Select the cell or range of cells around which you wish to put the border.

  2. Click on the arrow attached to the Format Border button image\sborder.gif on the formatting bar. A small "Borders" box is opened.

  3. Click on the borders you would like to be placed around the selection: All Borders puts a border around the whole selection; Left, Right, Top and Bottom can be used to place individual borders; Clear Borders clears all borders from the selection.

Note that in using the Format Border button the borders are placed around the boundary of the selection. If you want to put borders around individual cells within a larger selection, then you need to use the menu, as shown below (although you could, of course, select the cells one by one and repeat the above procedure).

To add borders to a cell or range of cells using the menu:

  1. Select a cell or range of cells.

  2. Select Cells from the Format menu (or right-click and select Format Cells).

  3. In the "Format" dialog box, select the Border tab to open up the "Border" box.

  4. The general procedure for creating a border is first to choose a border color, followed by a line-style, and then to click on the appropriate border or borders to apply the selected color and line-style. Of course, you may want to give different borders different colors and/or line-styles. In this case, you have to repeat the process in each case. The following sections explain how to select borders, line-styles and colors.

  5. In the Borders group box at the left, you can specify which edges of the selection you want to put borders around. Outline puts a box around the whole of the selected area; Left, Right, Top and Bottom act on each of the cells. If you switched on all of these at once, you would get a selection surrounded by a border, with all the cells within the selection also surrounded by borders. This allows you to have, for example, a thick-lined box of one color that contains broken-lined cells of another color.

  6. You can also have double borders, once again choosing these individually or as a whole in the Borders box at the left.

  7. Choose a color for the border in the Color box. Clicking on the arrow displays a range of colors. Note that all of the line-styles take on the color that is selected, until you choose another.

  8. In the Style box at the bottom, you can choose the line-style you would like a border to have. The easiest way to set your borders is to pick a line-style first and then click on each of the border edges in turn. Often you’ll want a different outline style, so click on the outline box and then click on a different line-style to finish. For example, to set a border style that looks like this:

image\sp9.gif

go through the following steps:

  1. Click the Border button on the toolbar.

  2. Select a thin line style.

  3. Click on Left, Right, Top and Bottom border boxes.

  4. Click on the Outline box.

  5. Select a heavier line style.

  6. Click OK to finish.

  1. Remove a border by clicking on it in the Border box. This will cancel the line-style. Alternatively, select the blank line-style in the Style box and then click on the appropriate border.

  2. Any line-styles, colors or borders you set will be displayed in the Preview box.

  3. Once you are satisfied with your settings, click on OK.

The "Format" dialog box will close and your settings will be applied to the currently selected cells in the spreadsheet.