How to Show or Hide Gridlines in Excel

Show or Hide Gridlines in Excel Worksheets (+ Shortcuts)

by Avantix Learning Team | Updated October 15, 2023

Applies to: Microsoft^® Excel^® 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021 and 365 (Windows)

You can remove or hide gridlines in Excel worksheets to simplify worksheet design. By default, gridlines are displayed but do not print. Gridlines are applied to entire worksheets or workbooks, not to specific cells. If you show or hide gridlines on one worksheet, it doesn't affect other sheets in the same workbook.

Borders and gridlines are two different things. Borders print by default and gridlines do not. You can't change the thickness or some other attributes of gridlines but you can change the thickness and style of borders and apply them to specific cells.

Gridlines may disappear for specific cells if you apply a fill color to cells. In this case, if you want to view or print gridlines, you need to remove the fill color from the selected cells. To remove fill color, select the cells with the fill color you want to remove, click the arrow next to Fill Color on the Home tab in the Ribbon (in the Font group) and select No Fill (not white).

In this article, we'll review how to:

Hide or remove gridlines
Show gridlines
Show or hide gridlines using a keyboard shortcut
Change the color of gridlines

Recommended article: How to Merge Cells in Excel (4 Ways)

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Hide or remove gridlines

To hide or remove gridlines:

Select the worksheet with the gridlines you want to remove by clicking the sheet tab at the bottom of the Excel workbook. If you want to remove gridlines on multiple sheets, click the first sheet tab and Shift-click the last sheet tab. If you Ctrl-click sheet tabs, you can select non-contiguous sheets.
Click the View tab in the Ribbon.
Uncheck or deselect Gridlines in the Show group.
If you have selected multiple sheets, click any unselected worksheet to exit the grouped state. If no unselected sheet is visible, right-click the tab of a selected sheet and then select Ungroup Sheets from the drop-down menu.

Show gridlines appears in the Show group in the View tab in the Ribbon:

Show gridlines

To show gridlines:

Select the worksheet with the gridlines you want to show by clicking the sheet tab at the bottom of the Excel workbook. If you want to show gridlines on multiple sheets, click the first sheet tab and Shift-click the last sheet tab. If you Ctrl-click sheet tabs, you can select non-contiguous sheets.
Click the View tab in the Ribbon.
Check or select Gridlines in the Show group. A check mark should appear.
If you have selected multiple sheets, click any unselected worksheet to exit the grouped state. If no unselected sheet is visible, right-click the tab of a selected sheet and then select Ungroup Sheets from the drop-down menu.
Show or hide gridlines using a keyboard shortcut

Show or hide gridlines using a keyboard shortcut

To show or hide gridlines using a keyboard shortcut:

Select one or more worksheets.
Press Alt > W > V > G (press Alt then W then V then G). This will show gridlines if they are hidden or hide gridlines if they are showing. Don't forget to ungroup the sheets if you have selected multiple worksheets.

Change the color of gridlines

By default, gridlines are displayed in worksheets using a default color (automatic).

To change the color of gridlines:

Click the File tab in the Ribbon.
Click Options. A dialog box appears.
Click Advanced in the categories on the left.
In the Display options for the worksheet section, ensure Gridlines is checked.
Click Gridline color. A drop-down menu appears.
Select the color you want.
Click OK. The color of gridlines will change for the selected worksheets.

The Excel Options dialog box appears as follows with gridline color options:

If a user has made gridlines white, other users will typically not recognize that gridline colors have been changed so white is not a good choice.

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