Thin Outer Line and Thick Inner Line Art Border

Run for the edge: using borders in Word

Of import Annotation: This article applies to Word 2007 and later. For Word 2003 and earlier, see this article. Except where noted, the screen shots in this article were taken in Give-and-take 2010, but the buttons and dialogs are the same in all Ribbon versions of Give-and-take.

You can create a broad diversity of special furnishings in Word using paragraph and tabular array borders. Use of borders, notwithstanding, is often misunderstood. This article will try to articulate up some misunderstandings and provide useful tips for using borders effectively.

Borders can be practical to:

•  Paragraphs

•  Selected text

•  Tables and table cells

•  Pages

If yous have no experience with borders, information technology will be helpful to read the section on paragraph borders starting time, since the later sections build on it.

Paragraph borders

Users sometimes create a text box or frame when they want a paragraph or paragraphs to announced to exist in a box, but a improve approach is to apply a box edge to the paragraph(s).

Borders can exist applied to all iv sides of a paragraph or to but one or more sides, every bit desired.

Not surprisingly, the button to use a border or borders to a paragraph or paragraphs appears in the Paragraph group on the Abode tab.

Borders button in Word 2010

The default push button face for this push button is Bottom Border, and when you lot mouse over it in Word 2007 or 2010, information technology will display the �Bottom Border� ScreenTip. In Give-and-take 2013 and higher up, information technology more helpfully displays �Borders.� If you click on this button when one or more paragraphs are selected, you will apply a lesser border to the selection.

Important Note: Give-and-take interprets �bottom� very literally. If you accept more than one paragraph selected, the border will be practical to the bottom of just the terminal paragraph. If you lot want a bottom border on each paragraph, you could select them individually, but there is a more efficient way, every bit we will run across later.

If you click the arrow abreast this push, you volition go the following dropdown menu:

Borders carte in Word 2010

Important Note: Some of the menu items (and not simply those that are disabled) are applicable only to tables. We�ll talk most them afterwards.

If you click on whatsoever of the other buttons on the menu, it becomes the default, and the ScreenTip of the push in the Paragraph grouping in Word 2007 and 2010 will modify to reflect your choice. In Word 2013 and above, the new option becomes the default for the push button, just the Borders ScreenTip does not change; for simplicity, therefore, we volition refer to this as the Borders push button.

The final pick on the Borders menu is Borders and Shading�, which opens the Borders and Shading dialog. This is what you will likely need for anything but the simplest box edge or line. By default, Word applies a �-point single line, color Automatic (that is, in virtually cases, black). If y'all want anything fancier, you need to employ the dialog, where you lot can select the line mode, weight (�width�), and colour.

Borders and Shading dialog for a single paragraph

Presets

The operation of the dialog is pretty straightforward. There are several �presets� that, except for Box, are rarely useful. The Box preset applies the default (�-point unmarried blackness) edge to all four sides of your selection. If the None preset is selected and y'all change the line fashion, Word will automatically apply a Box border, which yous can see in the Preview. Notation that all four buttons (Tiptop, Lesser, Left, and Right) are enabled.

The Shadow preset appears to apply the currently selected line and weight to the top and left sides of the paragraph and a heavier weight to the right and bottom sides. In fact, if you choose 1 of the dashed or multiple or thick-and-thin styles, you can run across that a shadow is actually applied.

Shadow border

The 3-D preset is applicative only if you have selected i of the thick-and-sparse line styles. All it does is reverse the thick and sparse borders on the correct and lesser sides. It�s not very impressive.

three-D border

The last �preset� is Custom. This button will automatically be selected if you begin to select and apply unlike settings for various sides of the paragraph. We�ll get to that in a minute. First, though, let�southward see what the dialog looks like when you have more than one paragraph selected:

Borders and Shading dialog for multiple paragraphs

In this version of the dialog yous can see that a button has been added between the Top and Bottom buttons. This is the Inside Horizontal Border. (Although there are no ScreenTips for the Preview buttons, you can run across the names of all of them on the Borders menu.) If you apply a Box border to several paragraphs, the border volition surroundings all of them, as shown higher up. If you want a edge between paragraphs, yous must click the Inside Horizontal Border button (or click between the paragraphs in the preview). You tin do the same with the other presets, but the results are not very pleasing.

3-D edge on multiple paragraphs

Of import Note: When you lot apply an Inside Horizontal Border, y'all get a single line between paragraphs; if you want the paragraphs to be in their own divide boxes, you lot will accept to employ a different technique. Refer to the �Gotchas� below.

Custom borders

At this bespeak you�ve probably figured out that you tin can apply or remove any given border by clicking in the Preview diagram or clicking the corresponding button. There�southward just ane farther undercover to applying custom borders: Whenever you click on the Preview, you get the line that is currently selected, so you must select the line manner, weight, and color you want before clicking on the Preview picture or ane of its buttons.

So let�s say you lot want borders just at the top and bottom of the paragraph, but you lot want them to be the opposite thick-and-sparse rules, 1 heavier than the other. For purposes of illustration, nosotros�ll make one crimson, 3 points (the default weight for this style), and the other blue, 6 points. So we select the line nosotros want for the elevation edge (it will exist 3 points past default) and select the color, then click on the meridian border in the preview (or the Height Border button). Then nosotros select the opposite line style, change the color to blueish, alter the weight to 6 points, and click on the bottom border (or the Bottom Border button). The Preview shows these results.

Custom borders

If you make this experiment, you lot will detect two things:

•  The default weight varies for diverse line styles, and

•  The dialog retains the last selected weight and color for each style, making it easier to select and reapply.

Line styles

If yous scroll through the Way coil box, you lot�ll run across that at that place are, toward the end, several styles that you are unlikely e'er to utilise. In particular, the last two styles don�t announced to exercise anything at all (they seem to utilise a Box border). Their default colour is Automatic, simply if you expand the Width dropdown (the default weight is � point), you�ll see that all the lines appear grey. That could exist because they�re not applicable to text paragraphs; they accept a function only in tables, which will be discussed later.

Borders and Shading dialog showing unusable line styles

Border options

In many, perchance most cases, borders (especially Top and Bottom borders) will exist closer to the text than you lot want. If you utilize Spacing Before/Afterward to the paragraph, it is added exterior the border, which helps with spacing the bordered paragraph relative to those effectually it but doesn�t add whatsoever �animate room� for the text inside the border.

In the bottom correct-hand corner of the dialog is the Options� button. Clicking information technology opens the Border and Shading Options dialog, in which you can fix the �From text� distance for each border individually. As yous can run across, the defaults are 1 point acme and bottom and four points left and correct. The maximum for any setting is 31 points (non quite half an inch).

Border and Shading Options dialog with default settings

Equally you change the settings, the Preview shows the results.

Border and Shading Options dialog with custom settings

Some �gotchas�

•  When you add together a border to several paragraphs of text, you may find that the side borders do non line upward and Word puts each paragraph in its own box. This is because the distance from text is measured from the actual paragraph edge. If you take practical a left or right indent (other than a first-line or hanging indent), the side border(s) will be indented accordingly. Discussion then considers this a divide �box� from the others that are formatted differently.

Uneven indents consequence in separate Box borders

If the indents are not very large, it may exist possible to align the borders past irresolute the �From text� setting to add together more space for the indented paragraph, but this will not cause the paragraphs to be enclosed past the same border; in that location will yet be 2 carve up boxes.

•  Conversely, if sequent paragraphs have the same formatting and take the same border manner practical, they volition all be in the same box. You can apply an Inside edge to separate the paragraphs, but if y'all desire them to be really in separate boxes, there are 2 ways to reach this:

1. Insert an unbordered paragraph between them. Format the line spacing of the paragraph to exist Exactly the altitude you want betwixt the boxes. This assumes that the ii paragraphs do not have any Spacing Before or After.

2. If your paragraphs take Spacing Earlier or After and you want to preserve this distance betwixt the boxes, yous can apply a more devious method: take advantage of the first �gotcha� and make the paragraphs different. Give ane of them an infinitesimal indent. If you lot press Alt while dragging the left or right margin marking on the ruler, you can move it equally little equally 0.01″.

•  You may notice that you sometimes get borders when you don�t want them. If you take not cleared the check box for automatic borders on the AutoFormat As You lot Type tab of the AutoCorrect Options dialog, these may announced every bit unexpectedly (and as welcome) every bit the Spanish Inquisition. For more on this, come across this section of my article on �Troublesome Lines.�

•  The �From text� setting in the Edge and Shading Options applies merely if at that place is actually a border on the respective side. If yous have merely meridian and bottom borders and desire those borders to extend farther beyond the sides of the text, you lot volition have to add �invisible� borders on the sides. In nigh cases, this tin can be accomplished past selecting White every bit the border color, just of course if you accept a colored background or accept added shading to the paragraph as well, you will have to match that color.

•  Bordered paragraph text conforms to the page margins. This means that the borders must extend into the margins. If you want the border to align with the margin, you will have to apply left and right indents to the paragraph(s) equivalent to the �From text� setting.

•  On the other hand, even when you don�t have side borders, a acme or bottom border extends only slightly into the margins (though non by four points). You might think that you could confine the border to the margins by adding �-point white Left and Right borders and setting the Left and Right �From text� settings to cypher, but in fact this has absolutely no upshot on the top border, which still extends slightly into the margins. Y'all can see this issue if you make the side borders Automatic instead of white: they volition be slightly outside the text rather than right at the margin (which is indicated by the dotted line). Presumably this is past blueprint.

Paragraph showing nothing side �From text� setting

Text borders

If you select just part of a paragraph before opening the Borders and Shading dialog, the �Employ to� setting will be fix to �Text� instead of �Paragraph.� Although the presets are the same, merely Box, Shadow, and iii-D can be used. You can select Custom, but as soon as y'all click on any of the buttons in the Preview, all are turned on or off. In other words, this edge is all or nothing, though at least you do get the same selection of line styles, colors, and weights.

Borders and Shading dialog for selected text

You will as well see that the Options� button is disabled, meaning that you cannot conform the border�southward distance from the text. If you desire to apply a border to merely one or more than sides of the text, see this article.

Table borders

When your selection is in a tabular array, the contextual Table Tools tabs are displayed. The Design tab has tools for working with tabular array borders.

Draw Borders group on the Table Tools | Design tab

Helpful Tip: As shown, by default, a newly inserted table will take a �-point border around every jail cell. If y'all want a borderless tabular array, printing Alt+Ctrl+U.* You tin can also remove the border by selecting the entire table and clicking No Edge on the Borders dropdown menu.

Important Annotation: Even when you accept removed the tabular array borders, you will probably nevertheless see cleaved lines outlining the cells. That is because Give-and-take also, by default, displays tabular array gridlines. The View Gridlines push to turn the brandish of table gridlines on and off is in the Tabular array group on the Table Tools | Layout tab and as well on the Borders dropdown bill of fare.

Tabular array showing gridlines

If you have text boundaries displayed (File | Options | Advanced: Show document content: Show text boundaries), y'all volition run across dotted lines outlining the cells even if yous are not displaying table gridlines.

Table showing text boundaries

If yous have experience applying paragraph borders, you may be able to effigy out how to use the Ribbon buttons (for line manner, weight, and color) along with the Borders dropdown to apply borders to the tabular array or selected cells as desired. If you find this frustrating or inefficient, you will want to open the Borders and Shading dialog:

•  The tiny arrow in the lesser right corner of the Draw Borders grouping is a �dialog launcher.� Click on that to open the dialog.

•  Like the Borders menu in the Paragraph group on the Home tab, the Borders dropdown on the Table Tools | Pattern tab has a Borders and Shading� option. Once you have clicked on that, information technology will be the default, and it is probably easier to click on than the dialog launcher.

When the pick is in a table, the Borders tab of the Borders and Shading dialog has a different advent from what you saw when adding paragraph or text borders.

Borders and Shading dialog for a table

Borders and Shading dialog for selected cells

Borders and Shading dialog for a unmarried cell

Every bit shown above, the Apply to setting will vary depending on whether you have the insertion point in a table (or have the entire table selected) or have just one or more cells selected. The Preview will also reverberate the selection of a single cell, ii cells horizontally or vertically, or 4 or more cells.

The biggest difference, nevertheless, is in the available presets. As shown, when a single table prison cell is selected, they are the same as for a paragraph. Merely when the entire table or more than one jail cell is selected, the presets alter to None, Box, All, Filigree, and Custom.

None and Custom are self-explanatory, and Box works the same as for paragraphs: whether applied to a jail cell or cells or an entire table, it puts a box border around the entire selection. All is also pretty straightforward: it applies a border of the currently selected style, weight, and color to every cell in the pick.

The Grid preset is a little confusing, however. If you haven�t changed any of the default settings, it appears to do the same thing as All: it borders every jail cell with a line of the same weight. But if you select a heavier line weight earlier applying the Grid preset, yous will get that heavier line around the outside of the table (or option) and the default �-point line inside, but every bit the preset picture implies.

The real fun comes if you want the inner borders to exist something other than � signal. If you change the line weight to � point, then you become that for all the borders again (effectively All). Instead, you must offset select one of the inside borders (horizontal or vertical), which will give information technology the aforementioned weight as the exterior border, select the new weight, and and so click the same border once again. At that point you tin can click the other inside border to apply the same weight.

Y'all may accept noticed that the Borders and Shading dialog for tables includes two buttons that aren�t in the dialog for paragraphs. On the Borders menu, they are labeled Diagonal Up Border and Diagonal Down Border, and they are the two buttons that are disabled on the Home | Paragraph | Borders dropdown menu when the insertion signal is in paragraph text because they are usable only in tables. What those buttons do is create diagonal lines that intersect your text like this:

They do not actually carve up your cell diagonally; they just create the appearance of doing so. If you desire to farther this deception, you will need to format text accordingly:

Tabular array edge options

At that place aren�t whatever! You will have noticed that the Options� push is disabled. That�s because the �Distance from text� in tables is determined by Spacing Before/Subsequently (which is applied to the text inside the cell) and left/right indents. You can also add prison cell padding (which Word calls �cell margins�) through the Table Properties dialog (in the Table Options dialog for the whole tabular array or the Cell Options dialog for individual or selected cells).

Some �gotchas�

•  If you are coming to Give-and-take from WordPerfect, you may be accustomed to seeing a distinct difference betwixt a bottom border on 1 jail cell and a tiptop border on the 1 beneath. Perhaps you�ve even combined these to go a double or heavier border. Only you lot may besides take found that this arrangement often made information technology very difficult to align intersecting borders properly. Word works differently: a bottom border on one prison cell is in exactly the same location as a superlative border on the cell below. This is usually a good thing, but every now and and then Discussion, in its infinite wisdom, volition decide that the border you lot applied as a lesser border is really at least in role a top edge on the cell below, making it impossible to remove it by turning off the Bottom Border button on the Borders palette. At such times yous must just shrug and move on to the cell beneath and remove the top border.

•  Tables continued from one folio to another ofttimes lose the bottom border of the last row; sometimes you tin restore it by explicitly applying a bottom edge to that row (non simply borders betwixt rows). Word has a way of perversely interpreting a border betwixt rows as being the top of one row or the bottom of another, but not both.

•  Because Spacing Before/Later is applied to text within the table, there is no fashion to add spacing above or below the table itself. To create more space, you will have to add Spacing After to the preceding text paragraph and/or Spacing Before to the following text paragraph.

•  Those last 2 border styles mentioned above? Although the shadowbox outcome they create can be quite bonny, these styles attain it by applying borders selectively and by calculation 0.03″ space between cells (equally tin be seen in the Tabular array Options dialog in Table Properties; this spacing doesn�t vary with the line weight chosen). This tin be insidious: If you apply one of these styles and so change to a unlike line fashion, the increased jail cell spacing remains in outcome, and y'all get a double edge. If you remove the border entirely, the increased prison cell spacing notwithstanding remains in effect, and you have to get to the Table Options and clear the check box for �Permit spacing between cells.� (This could explain how (aside from copying from the Web) some users end up with prison cell padding unintentionally.)

Tabular array with �shadowbox� edge

Drawing tables

Equally y'all�ve seen, the group on the contextual Table Tools | Design tab that contains the border tools is called Draw Borders, and the line color tool is called Pen Color. This might encourage y'all to utilise the button labeled Draw Tabular array. Don�t! At least not to really create a table.

In gild to create a table from scratch using Draw Tabular array, you would have to select it from the Insert | Tables | Table or Dwelling | Paragraph | Borders dropdown (since the contextual Table Tools are displayed only when the insertion signal is in an existing table). I recollect if you lot requite that a whirl, you�ll understand how you can get in a lot of problem in a hurry.

I accept yet to notice a tabular array that could non be effectively created using Insert | Tables | Table and and then adjusting cell widths and merging or splitting as needed. And I take seen (and corrected) some horrible messes fabricated by nonclerical users using Draw Table (actually, even for practiced users, it is very difficult to avert making a mess of your tables if you use this tool). The Draw Table push button does have a useful function, however: when it is activated, yous tin can utilize it to click on a cell boundary and apply the currently selected edge.

Care should also be taken using the Eraser. When you click on a jail cell purlieus with this tool, the effect is to merge the two adjacent cells. That consequence can besides be accomplished past selecting the ii cells, right-clicking, and choosing Merge Cells. What the Eraser tool is all-time suited for is merging columns. If you select two columns and utilise Merge Cells, the two columns become one large jail cell. If you want each row of the ii columns to exist preserved, and so you can activate the Eraser button and carefully drag information technology over the purlieus between the two columns.

Important Note: When using the Eraser tool, be sure to display table gridlines and/or text boundaries and then that you can see what yous�re doing (if your hand wavers only a picayune, you will finish up erasing row boundaries too as the cavalcade boundary). Be prepared to Undo (Ctrl+Z) equally soon as you mess up!

Page borders

Compared to text and table borders, page borders are relatively straightforward. They are applied through the Page Border tab of the Borders and Shading dialog. You tin access that direct using the Page Borders push button in the Page Background group on the Folio Layout tab of the Ribbon in Word 2007 and 2010; in Word 2013 and above, the Page Background grouping is on the Design tab.

Folio Edge tab of the Borders and Shading dialog

The presets are the same as for text paragraphs (None, Box, Shadow, 3-D, and Custom) and the borders are practical to some or all of the sides in the same way as to text paragraphs, using the presets or the Preview buttons. There are, withal, two aspects in which page borders differ from paragraph borders.

Page border options

By default, a page border is 24 points (⅓″) from each side of the page. For printers, specially inkjet printers, that can�t print that shut to the edge (specially on the trailing edge�bottom of a portrait page or ane side of landscape), this ways that one side of the border will exist cutting off (run into �The bottoms of my pages don't print�). The Options� button in this dialog opens a new dialog that, like the ane for paragraph borders, is titled Border and Shading Options, only it has specific settings for page borders.

Edge and Shading Options dialog for Page Borders

As with paragraph borders, the range of distance settings is from zero to 31 points, so the largest setting, which is less than half an inch, may still not be enough to get the border out of the nonprintable area. The trick is to change the setting from �Edge of page� to �Text.� This setting is a little misleading because the altitude is not actually measured from the text itself but from the folio margins (which ascertain the outer limits of text). When y'all modify this setting, the default measurements also change:

Border and Shading Options for Page Borders (from text)

As tin can exist seen, the default distances are the same every bit the default for text paragraphs: 1 betoken top and lesser, iv points left and right. Again, y'all can prepare them as high as 31 points (most one-half an inch from the margins).

The Border and Shading Options dialog besides includes four check boxes. Three of these are bachelor simply when �From text� is selected:

•  With the �Environs header� and �Surroundings footer� check boxes, you tin can choose whether the �text� includes the header and/or footer, if whatsoever. (With either of these options enabled, you will not meet any alter in the page edge until you add together content to the header or footer.)

•  The �Align paragraph borders and table edges with page border� choice seems to take result just when paragraph or table borders approach very close to the page border; Word then makes sure that they are exactly aligned. This is more likely to be an effect when the page edge is very close to the text.

The fourth selection, �Ever display in front,� which is always available, determines whether a graphic in the margin area displays backside or in front of the folio border.

Border art

Border art originated in Microsoft Publisher. Information technology seems to have been there pretty much from the beginning, offering 160 �art� borders that could be added to whatever text frame or graphic; it was introduced to Word in Function 97 but (give thanks goodness!) only for page borders. You lot may not have a called-for desire to environment your page with apples or maple muffins or slices of cake or processed corn (the �art� shown below), simply if you persevere through all 160 styles, yous will observe that there are a few that are actually useful and attractive. And, different in Publisher, where art borders are all-or-nothing, you can use Border Art to a unmarried side or several, not only all 4.

Border and Shadings dialog for Page Borders showing Border Art

On the other hand, the option of Border Art in Word is limited. Unlike in Publisher, you cannot create custom Border Fine art. If you desire a border using different pictures, y'all will have to create the edge manually, anchored to the page header, every bit described in my commodity on �Creating Custom Folio Borders.�

Where the page edge appears

As shown in the screen shot above, the default is for a page border to apply to the entire document and appear on every page. But the dialog does offering other options:

�Apply to� settings for page borders

Non actually a border at all

One boosted button on the Borders menus and in the Borders and Shading dialog is Horizontal Line, which inserts a sparse grayness line from margin to margin.

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In Word 2003 and earlier, the Horizontal Line button in the Borders and Shading dialog opens this dialog:

Discussion 2003 Horizontal Line dialog

This dialog offers a selection of plain and fancy lines that are actually graphic objects (the aforementioned graphics can be plant by searching the clip fine art collection for �divider�). In Discussion 2007 and above, however, you get no choice about the line y'all want to insert, though you do become some formatting capability. If you lot right-click on the line and select Format Horizontal Line, you get this dialog:

Format Horizontal Line dialog

As you can see, you can adjust the length and width (although in fact you can actually exercise this past dragging the sizing handles that appear when y'all select information technology), and you can change the colour. Since the object is In Line With Text, yous tin adjust its position using Spacing Before/After in the Paragraph dialog, so it�south possible that the line has some utility. I'll use it here (in HTML, it�s an <60 minutes> tag) to end the article!

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*This shortcut runs the TableUpdateAutoFormat control. �Tabular array AutoFormat� is the previous proper noun for what is at present chosen a �table style.� The default table style is Table Filigree, and when you run this command, that mode remains in effect. If yous reapply it, you accept borders over again, so the style itself has not been updated. It is therefore non articulate what this command is really doing except removing the default border, which is what y'all want.

This commodity copyright � 2017 by Suzanne S. Barnhill. I am grateful to beau Discussion MVP Jay Freedman, who reviewed this article and fabricated several helpful suggestions.

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Source: http://wordfaqs.ssbarnhill.com/BordersRibbon.htm

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