Excel automatically shows grid lines on its worksheets, using them as cell guides so you can see where your data goes. Although they help navigate around a sheet or workbook, you can turn them off without affecting cells or data. However, the program takes an all-or-nothing approach to grid line views. You can see them all or switch them all off, but you can't remove lines around individual cells or selected areas in your sheet unless you use a workaround with the program's border tools.
Remove Grid Lines From Sheets and Workbooks
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You can remove grid lines from individual worksheets, from entire workbooks or from selected sheets in a workbook.
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To remove lines from the sheet in which you're working, open the View tab. Go to the Show area and uncheck the Gridlines box. All the lines in the sheet disappear.
If you want to apply the change to all sheets in a workbook, go to the sheet tabs at the bottom of the screen, right-click on any sheet and choose Select All Sheets. When you uncheck the Gridlines box now, you'll remove lines from the whole workbook.
Remove Selected Grid Lines
You can't remove selected grid lines in Excel but you can change their border color so they don't display on the screen. Select the cells whose lines you want to remove and go to the Borders button on the Home tab. Select Line Color and choose white in the color palette.
Go back to the Borders button and choose a border outline. For example, to remove lines from one cell, use Outside Borders; to remove them from a selection of cells, use All Borders. When you select a border, the grid lines on your cell or selection turn white and look like they've been removed.
Other Grid Line Editing Features
Excel has a couple of other grid line editing features that you may find useful. For example, you can set lines to print or change their color on sheets or workbooks. If you want to work with selected cells within a sheet or apply other effects, use the program's Border tools.
Set Grid Lines to Print
Open the Page Layout tab. Go to the Sheet Options area and check the Print box. This applies the change to your current worksheet.
Change Grid Line Color
Excel allows you to change the color of all grid lines in a sheet. Go to File and then Options. Open the Advanced tab and scroll down to Display Options for This Worksheet. Open the Gridline Color box and choose the color you want. Select OK to apply the change.
