Your worksheet could have small or large datasets and you cannot organize that data manually. To make your data look presentable, you have to work on it. Gridlines can help you in organizing data while applying and manipulating values in multiple ways. Gridlines are those grey lines that appear when you open a sheet to enter data. These lines can clearly separate cells so that nobody gets confused as the main purpose of Excel is to manage data in rows and columns.
Well, sometimes you don’t need those grey vertical or horizontal lines for whatever reason. You can hide gridlines on a worksheet by using multiple approaches. Let’s find out how to remove gridlines in Excel.
Uses of Gridlines
- Gridlines can differentiate the cell borders in the worksheet.
- These grey lines are super relevant to give you visual evidence when you align objects and images in the workbook.
- Last but not the least; gridlines can boost the readability of your tables or charts that do not contain borders.
How to Remove Gridlines in Excel only in Specific Cells
In this method, you will get to know how you can hide gridlines only in specific cell ranges. The white background or white borders are helpful in this case. Let’s understand how this procedure takes place:
- Choose the range that is needed to remove lines.
- Right-click from the mouse on the selection and choose Format Cells from the context menu. You can even press CTRL + 1 from the keyboard to open the Format Cells option.
- You must be on the Border tab from the Format Cells window.
- Select the White color and press the Outline as well as the Inside buttons given under Presets.
- Press OK and you will see the changes.
That’s it! You will see the “white crow” in the worksheet.
How to Hide Gridlines using the View Tab
You can hide grey lines by using built-in features in Excel. Here is the procedure to follow:
- Open the View tab in an Excel worksheet.
- Find the Gridlines option from the Show menu and uncheck the box next to it.
- This step will make gridlines disappear from the worksheet. However, the cell outline remains visible when the cell is selected. To get the gridlines back, check the box next to Gridlines in View from the Show menu.
Hide the Gridlines in Excel by Changing the Color of the Gridlines
To hide or remove the gridlines from your worksheet, you can change the color of these grey lines. For this, you can follow the steps given below:
- Open the File menu and choose Options.
- From the Options dialog box, choose the “Advanced” option placed on the left side.
- Scroll down to the section “Display options for this worksheet”
- You can use the Gridlines Color drop-down menu given on the lower side. Choose the color for the gridline.
- Press OK.
How to Remove Gridlines in Excel using Background Fill Option
Other than the above methods, you can remove gridlines using the background fill option. By applying a fill color option to a specific area of the sheet or even the entire sheet you can hide the gridlines.
Press CTRL + A to select all the cells in the worksheet if you need to apply the Fill Color option to the whole sheet. Now, open the Home tab and choose the Font section. In the drop-down list, choose the Font Color. Click on the “White” color from the list.
When the white background is applied it can hide the gridlines. The data in the cells will remain visible because the function is applied to the cells only.
How You can Add or Remove Gridlines with a Keyboard Shortcut
To be precise, there is no specific key you will find on the keyboard that can add or remove the gridlines in Excel. However, by using multiple keys mutually you can perform a function.
ALT is a hotkey that you can use with other keys to execute this function.
- Pressing the ALT key will activate the hotkeys and you will see the Excel ribbon shows up some keys needed to be used to function the command.
- Press ALT + W + V + G in order from the keyboard. It helps toggle on or off the gridlines with a keyboard shortcut.
To Sum Up
The above-mentioned methods are real-time unique and functional. You can try any of these methods to get your desired results. Excel provides many options to become an expert, you just have to practice enough.
