Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: Adding Page Borders to a Printout.
Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated July 13, 2024)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365
Alan uses Excel frequently for creating printouts that are used by others. He likes to include borders on the final documents to give them a professional appearance. Alan knows how to invoke page borders in Word, but there isn't a similar feature in Excel. Lacking this he has resorted to manually inserting borders on cell ranges to get the appearance he wants. This works OK if the printout is a single page, but it isn't too great when Alan has multi-page printouts. He wonders if there is some way to add page borders automatically in Excel.
There are a couple of ways you can approach creating page borders for an Excel printout, but none of them are automatic. One way is to rely on your printer. Some printers have the ability to add borders automatically around the border of a page. This, of course, is outside the control of Excel. You can find out if your printer has such capabilities by displaying the Printer Options dialog box for your printer (accessible through the Print dialog box or from the printing options page displayed by pressing Ctrl+P) and poking around through the options visible there.
Another approach is to create an image of your border using your favorite graphics program and save it as a JPG, PNG, or TIF file. (You could actually use several other image file formats, but these are ones typically supported by all the graphics programs.) In Excel you can then, within the header, insert the picture of the border. Format the picture to adjust the image size so it covers your whole page.
There are also third-party solutions available. Two that have come highly recommended by some subscribers over the years are Asap Utilities (https://www.asap-utilities.com) and Fine Print (https://fineprint.com/fp/). Both allow you to create borders rather easily.
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (8185) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Adding Page Borders to a Printout.
Excel Smarts for Beginners! Featuring the friendly and trusted For Dummies style, this popular guide shows beginners how to get up and running with Excel while also helping more experienced users get comfortable with the newest features. Check out Excel 2019 For Dummies today!
Need to print more than a single copy of a worksheet? You can do it easily by using the printing controls provided by Excel.
Discover MoreNeed to only print out certain rows from your data? It's easy to do if you apply the filtering or sorting techniques ...
Discover MoreShould you print in portrait or in landscape? The decision can greatly affect the way your printout looks. Wouldn't it be ...
Discover MoreFREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)
Got a version of Excel that uses the ribbon interface (Excel 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the menu interface.
FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
Copyright © 2025 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.
Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here:
Comments