Borders, shading and cell styles

Hello students, welcome to Kwickprep. You print a neat worksheet, but the lines between the cells are missing on paper. Why? Today we will learn borders, shading and cell styles, so your sheets look professional on screen and in print.

First, clear up a common confusion. Gridlines are the faint grey lines you see between cells on the screen. They are only guides, and by default they do not print. Borders are lines that you add yourself to chosen cells. Borders do print, and you can choose their style, thickness and colour.

The Borders button in the Font group of the Home tab has a drop-down list. All Borders draws a line around every cell, which suits a data table. Outside Borders draws only one box around the whole selected range. Thick Box Border draws a thick outline, to highlight something important. Bottom Double Border draws two lines under a cell, as accountants do under a grand total. No Border removes the lines from the selected cells.

For more control, use the Border tab in Format Cells. First, select the range you want to border. Press Ctrl+1 and open the Border tab. Pick a line style, such as thin, dashed or thick. Pick a colour for the line. Then click Outline for the outer edge, or Inside for the lines between cells, and the preview shows the result. Finally, click OK to apply it.

Next, shading. Shading means giving a cell a background colour. The quickest tool is Fill Color, the paint bucket button on the Home tab. The Fill tab in Format Cells also lets you add patterns and gradient effects. To remove shading, choose No Fill from the same list.

Colour helps only when you use it wisely. Shade the heading row or key rows, not the whole sheet. A light fill with dark text is the easiest to read, both on screen and on a black and white printout. In a long list, shading every other row, called banding, helps the eye follow a row across. And never use colour as the only signal, because some people cannot see colours clearly, so also add a word like Pending.

Now, a new term. A cell style is a named set of formats saved together. One style can include the font, fill colour, border, alignment and number format. You find them on the Home tab, in the Styles group, under Cell Styles. One click on a style applies all of its formats together, which is much faster than setting each one.

Excel groups its built-in styles into sections. Good, Bad and Neutral give green, red and yellow looks, useful for pass or fail results. Data and Model has styles like Input, Output, Calculation and Note, which show what each cell is for. Titles and Headings has Title, Heading 1 to 4 and Total, for a clean report. Themed Cell Styles give ready colour bands that match the workbook theme. Number Format styles, like Currency and Percent, format amounts in one click.

You can also make your own style. Open Cell Styles and choose New Cell Style at the bottom. Give it a name, like Fee Heading, click Format, and set the font, border and fill. Later, right-click the style and choose Modify to change it. The best part is that every cell using that style updates at once, so a hundred headings change in a single step.

Now pause and predict. You shade A1 colon E1 yellow and add All Borders. Then you apply the cell style called Normal to the same cells. Do the yellow fill and the borders stay? No, they do not, because Normal resets the font, fill, border and number format to the plain default.

Let us revise what we learned today. Gridlines are only screen guides, while borders print. Use the Borders button for quick lines, and Ctrl+1 for full control. Fill Color adds shading, so keep it light and simple. A cell style is a named set of formats you apply in one click. Modify a style, and every cell using it updates, so build a neat result sheet with these tools today.