A faint grid has appeared across your Word page, or a borderless table shows dotted cell outlines you never drew. Those are gridlines. To turn the page grid on or off, open the View tab and check or clear Gridlines. For tables, click inside the table and select View Gridlines on the table’s Layout tab. Neither kind prints. These steps cover Word for Microsoft 365 on Windows, with notes for Mac, Word for the web and Word 2013.
Spreadsheets work a little differently, and the steps to hide gridlines in an Excel worksheet include a separate print setting.
Which lines are you seeing?
Word draws several kinds of lines that look alike on screen but come from different settings. Turning off the wrong one is the most common reason “the gridlines won’t go away.” Match what you see to a row below, then jump to that section.
| Line type | What it looks like | Prints? | Where it is controlled |
|---|---|---|---|
| Page (drawing) gridlines | An even grid across the whole page, behind text | No | View tab > Gridlines |
| Table gridlines | Faint lines on the edges of table cells that have no borders | No | Table Layout (or Layout) tab > View Gridlines |
| Table or paragraph borders | Solid lines around cells, paragraphs or the page | Yes | Borders button > No Border, or Page Borders |
| Text boundaries | Dotted outline of the text area inside the margins | No | File > Options > Advanced |
A quick test: open File > Print and look at the preview. Any line still visible there is a border, not a gridline, because Microsoft states that gridlines in Word are a visual reference only and can’t be printed.
Turn the page grid on or off
The page grid is a layout aid for placing shapes, pictures, text boxes and charts. It works best in Print Layout view, which is the default view for most documents.
Show the page grid
- Open the document and make sure you are in Print Layout: on the View tab, select Print Layout in the Views group.
- On the same View tab, find the Show group.
- Check Gridlines. A light grid covers each page right away.
Hide the page grid
- Select the View tab.
- In the Show group, clear the Gridlines check box.
- Look at the page. The grid should disappear immediately; if faint lines remain, they are a different type from the table above.
Many versions also list View Gridlines under the Align menu that appears when a shape or picture is selected (Shape Format or Picture Format tab). It toggles the same grid, which is handy while you are already positioning an object.
Show or hide table gridlines
Table gridlines matter when a table has no borders, such as a layout table, a form or a sheet of labels. Without them you can’t tell where one cell ends and the next begins, so typing and resizing become guesswork.
- Click anywhere inside the table. Word adds two table tabs to the ribbon.
- Open the layout tab for tables. In current Word it may read Table Layout or simply Layout; in Word 2013 it is Layout under Table Tools.
- In the Table group at the far left, select View Gridlines. When the button is highlighted, gridlines are on; select it again to turn them off.
Two things surprise people here. First, the button usually changes every table you view, not just the one you clicked in. Second, it is a view setting rather than formatting, so it does not travel with the file: a coworker who opens the same document sees cell edges based on their own Word setting. If your table’s edges are also running past the margin, the fixes in getting a table that runs off the page back inside the margins pair well with gridlines turned on.
Label sheets are a classic case: each label is a borderless cell, and seeing those cells helps you check alignment before you print. The walkthrough for building a reusable label template in Word relies on exactly this view.
If clicking View Gridlines seems to do nothing, the table probably has borders. Borders sit on top of the gridlines and hide them, so you only see a difference after the borders are removed.
When the lines print: remove borders instead
Solid lines that show up on paper or in Print Preview are borders. Remove them from the table (or from selected cells) like this:
- Hover over the table and click the move handle, the small four-way arrow at its top-left corner, to select the whole table. To change only part of it, drag across those cells instead.
- On the Home tab, in the Paragraph group, open the arrow next to the Borders button. The same list is on the Table Design tab under Borders.
- Choose No Border. The wording can vary slightly by version.
- Check the result in File > Print. With View Gridlines on, faint lines stay on screen where the borders were; they will not print.
For styling borders rather than removing them (line weight, color, a border on one side only), see adding borders to text, paragraphs, tables and pages.
Change grid spacing and snapping
The grid’s spacing controls how far apart the lines sit and, if snapping is on, where objects land when you drag them. Microsoft documents this route:
- Select a picture, shape, chart or other object in the document.
- On the Picture Format (or Shape Format) tab, select Align Objects (labeled Align in some builds), then Grid Settings.
- In the Grid and Guides dialog, set Horizontal spacing and Vertical spacing. Smaller values give finer placement.
- Choose your snapping behavior: Snap objects to grid when the gridlines are not displayed keeps snapping active even with the grid hidden, and Snap objects to other objects lines things up with nearby shapes.
- Select OK, or select Set As Default first if you want these settings in new documents.
Many versions also open the same dialog from Layout > Align > Grid Settings without selecting an object first. Some versions add a Show grid area in the dialog with an option to display gridlines on screen and to show a line only every few grid units, which thins a dense grid without changing snapping.
Snapping only works in Print Layout view. To override it for a single move, hold Alt while you drag the object. For broader placement options such as wrapping and side-by-side images, see aligning pictures in Word.
Other faint lines that look like gridlines
Text boundaries
A dotted rectangle around the text area on every page is the text boundary. Go to File > Options > Advanced, scroll to Show document content, clear Show text boundaries and select OK. If a borderless table still shows a dotted outline after you turn off View Gridlines, check this option too.
Page borders
A line around the whole page that prints is a page border. On the Design tab, select Page Borders, choose None under Setting, and select OK.
Lines that appear after typing three hyphens
Typing --- and pressing Enter can make AutoFormat draw a border line across the page. Put the cursor in the paragraph just above the line and choose Home > Borders > No Border. To stop it happening, go to File > Options > Proofing > AutoCorrect Options, open AutoFormat As You Type, and clear Border lines.
Wavy red or blue underlines are proofing marks, not gridlines; removing the blue line in Word covers those. The ruler along the top and side is separate as well, and showing or hiding the ruler explains that toggle.
Need lines that print?
Because gridlines stay on screen, use one of these when you want a grid on paper, such as practice sheets or a seating chart.
- A table with all borders: insert a table with as many rows and columns as you need, select it, and choose Borders > All Borders. Set equal row height and column width on the table layout tab for even squares. This is the most predictable method.
- A page pattern: on the Design tab, select Page Color > Fill Effects, open the Pattern tab and pick a grid pattern. Page colors don’t print by default, so also turn on Print background colors and images in File > Options > Display.
- Writing lines: use a bottom paragraph border on empty lines, or a table with only horizontal borders.
Mac, Word for the web and Word 2013
Word for Mac
The Gridlines check box is on the View tab of the ribbon, and many versions also list Gridlines in the View menu in the menu bar. Table gridlines follow the same idea as Windows: click in the table, open the table layout tab and select View Gridlines.
Word for the web
Microsoft lists gridlines as a desktop feature, and its gridlines help page says it doesn’t apply to Word for the web. If you need the grid, open the file in the desktop app (Word for the web offers an Open in Desktop App option, often under the Editing menu) and use the View tab there. You don’t lose anything by switching: a grid you turn on in the desktop app simply won’t be visible when the file is opened in a browser.
Word 2013 and other older versions
Word 2013 uses the same View tab check box. Its table tabs appear under a Table Tools heading as Design and Layout, and the grid settings sit on the Page Layout tab under Align. Word 2007 and 2010 have the same View Gridlines table button; the grid settings dialog there may be titled Drawing Grid.
When gridlines will not behave
The Gridlines box is checked but nothing shows
Switch to Print Layout on the View tab. Read Mode, Web Layout and Draft don’t show the page grid, and the check box may be unavailable in some of them.
Objects jump when you drag them
Snapping is on. Hold Alt while dragging, or clear both snap options in Grid and Guides.
Lines remain after you clear Gridlines
Work down the comparison table: turn off View Gridlines for tables, clear Show text boundaries, then check for borders with Print Preview.
A coworker sees lines you turned off
Gridlines are a view setting, not formatting saved in the document, so each person controls them in their own copy of Word. Ask them to turn the option off on their side, or remove borders if the lines also print.
Gridlines in Word
Can I change the gridline color?
Word has no documented color setting for gridlines. If you need colored lines, build a bordered table or a page pattern and pick the color there.
Will hiding gridlines change my layout?
No. Hiding the grid only changes what you see. Objects stay where they are, and snapping can still apply if “Snap objects to grid when the gridlines are not displayed” is on.
Why do my label cells disappear when I turn off View Gridlines?
The labels are borderless table cells, so the gridlines were the only outline. The cells are still there; turn View Gridlines back on while you edit.
Next step
Once you know which line type you have, the fix is a single check box or button. If you placed objects using the grid, consider hiding it before sharing screenshots of the document, and leave snapping on so later edits stay aligned. Microsoft’s pages on showing or hiding gridlines, snapping objects to a grid in Word and the Word for the web versus desktop comparison list the official details.
Kermit Matthews runs Live2Tech from just outside Philadelphia. He is an IT specialist with over 20 years of experience, from a university help desk to small-business IT, IT management and his own consulting practice, and has written tech guides full time since 2020. Steps are checked against the current software on a real device or the maker’s official documentation. More about Kermit.