How to Eliminate Lines in Excel | Remove Gridlines & Borders

Lines in Excel come in three types—gridlines, borders, and page breaks—and each requires a different removal method to clean up your spreadsheet.

When you set out to eliminate lines in Excel, the first thing to know is that “lines” means three different things. The faint gray gridlines between cells, the colored borders someone drew around them, and the dashed page-break marks each need a separate fix. Removing all of them starts with telling them apart.

Removing Lines in Excel: A Method for Each Line Type

Gridlines are the default gray separators Excel draws between every cell. Borders are lines users add manually around or inside cells. Page breaks are dashed marks Excel inserts where pages split during printing. Each one has its own removal route, and using the wrong fix is the most common mistake people make.

How to Remove Gridlines from the Entire Sheet

This is the most common request: turn off all those gray gridlines at once. Microsoft Excel puts the control in one place on the ribbon.

1. Click the View tab in the ribbon at the top of Excel.
2. In the Show group, find the Gridlines checkbox (it has a small grid icon next to it).
3. Uncheck the box.

The gridlines vanish from the active sheet immediately. To remove them from every sheet in the workbook, hold Ctrl and click each sheet tab at the bottom before unchecking — the setting only applies to the sheets you’ve selected.

For a more permanent version of this setting, go to File > Options > Advanced. Scroll to the Display options for this worksheet section and uncheck Show gridlines. This bypasses the View tab entirely and locks the change at the file level. Microsoft’s official gridlines documentation confirms this as the primary method for all modern Excel versions.

How to Hide Gridlines in Specific Cells Only

Sometimes you want gridlines gone from just one section — a header row, a summary block, or an area next to a chart — while keeping them everywhere else. The white-fill trick handles this without affecting the rest of the sheet.

1. Select the cells or range where you want the lines hidden.
2. Go to the Home tab.
3. In the Font group, click the Fill Color dropdown — the paint bucket icon.
4. Choose White from the color palette.

The gray gridlines disappear behind the white background, and your data stays fully readable. One trade-off: this masks the gridlines rather than removing them. If you later apply a different theme or remove the fill, the lines reappear. It’s a cosmetic fix, not a structural one.

How to Remove Borders (Lines You Drew Yourself)

Borders are the lines users add manually — around a cell, along its bottom edge, or as a full grid within a range. They look similar to gridlines, but they don’t disappear when you uncheck the Gridlines box. Borders need their own command.

1. Select the cells that contain the borders you want to remove.
2. Go to the Home tab.
3. In the Font group, click the Borders dropdown arrow.
4. Select No Border from the list.

The borders disappear from the selected cells. If a border stubbornly stays visible, its color may be set to something other than automatic. Open the Format Cells dialog (right-click the cells and choose Format Cells), go to the Border tab, set the Color to White, and apply it to both Outline and Inside presets. This overrides any colored border still showing.

What Are Those Dashed Lines on My Sheet?

Dashed lines running across your spreadsheet are not gridlines or borders — they are page breaks. Excel inserts them automatically to show where pages will split when the sheet is printed. They only appear on screen and don’t affect your data, but they can make a worksheet look cluttered.

1. Go to File > Options > Advanced.
2. Scroll down to the Display options for this worksheet section.
3. Uncheck Show page breaks.

The dashed lines disappear immediately. This is a per-sheet setting, so repeat it for each worksheet where the page breaks appear.

Which Removal Method Fits Your Situation?

The table below matches what you see on screen to the exact fix. Identify the line type first, then use the corresponding method from the steps above.

The rule of thumb is straightforward: gray lines between cells are gridlines (fix them on the View tab), colored lines around or inside cells are borders (fix them on the Home tab), and dashed lines across the sheet are page breaks (fix them in Options). Match what you see to the right fix, and you can clean up any Excel sheet in seconds.