Cell borders are missing in Microsoft Excel

[GuruT]

Don't know much about Excel (just mainly Word). A typist lady here lost some cell borders (left and/or right) in just a few rows/columns scattered about the work sheet. Problem (if it is a problem) seems to start just outside the filled data columns that I see. For example, there is one such odd cell just down at the right corner of the last data olumn and last data row junction where it looks like the border between 2 cells has disappeared. Difficult to explain. Lady not much English and I don't know much Thai and know nothing much about Excel. Don't know how much she knows about Excel nor why she claims this is a problem. Says she worked 5 yrs with it and never seen this before. Think she's blaming me because I did some work in Word on that comp. Happened before with other little things.

Thought it was memory/graphics/re-draw problem or to do w/ hide/unhide grid lines, corrupted file, and so on. But not look like. Went thru the Tools\Options routine and MS Excel Help ad infinitum. Saved copy to .sylk, html, etc. format, inserted in Word, what have you and also tried the "repair Excel workbook" thing - all at another computer I copied it to - but nothing restores those missing borders.

When I click in those odd cells though, I still get the heavy black outline cursor rectangle (whatever you call it) around each individual cell. This indicates, o me anyway, that all is well with the cells and it may just be a border problem. Unfortunately I don't know enough about Excel to work in it and prove my point to her. I don't know, maybe somehow the cells in some rows (across 1 thru 3 columns) got merged. What's happening? Any ideas anyone?

[Leanne]

Go to edit and select all if all the borders should be the same if not then click on the missing borders. then go to format and then click on cells click on the borders tab. Click on the line style you prefer and color (automatic = black). Then under presets click the outline and the inside buttons then click ok.

[Koman]

If you can click on the cell and it highlights all the merged cells then click the merge and center button on the toolbar to unmerge them.

[Shurod]

OK. Got that. Appreciate the instant response. Will try check that out tonite when everyone gone (it is almost 17:00 here now). No. No cells are merging, per what I can see. The click cursor in each cell goes up to the missing border, NOT beyond, into the next cell. I believe I did try highlighting adjacent columns and so on and then removing and replacing borders (that is, un-hiding/re hiding grid lines). Didn't help. All same as before. It just looked like one of those typical graphics/low-memory type things I used to encounter w/ the old OS's and Word Tables. Some cell borders just weren't showing until you pressed page-down/page-up a couple of times to settle the graphics. Unfortunately, in this case it's for real. They're gone for good. I'll see if your advice will do the trick and let you know.

[Go!pee]

Back again. 3rd visit today. As I said, not very well versed in Excel. My Excel Edit menu no have "select all". It does have a "clear" and then "all", "Formats", etc., on sub-menu. "Format" also no help. If click "outline" nothing happens - tho' I can clearly see the cell border being created in the preview pane. Same for selecting any individual border (this part is all similar to MS Word, so don't think I'm screwing up here). This is getting stranger and stranger. In "Format", "Protection", the "lock" box was ticked. I unticked it to check but made no dif. Let me add a few more observations. The actual 'working area' where the data is shown neatly lined up in the cells and columns, also has a few rows where the 'written' data extends into the adjacent cell. There is no border between those 2 cells either but if I click in those 2 cells, each cell gets the heavy black cursor outline (just as with the problem cells she pointed out to me).

This again indicated to me that these are not 'merged' cells but separate, autonomous cells - except that there's no border between them (but what do "I" know about it all). This situation is the same for about 30% of the rows for columns D & E in the 'working area'. In most rows stretching across these columns, all the cells have complete border type outlines, when viewed in the regular 'working view'; except that the row borders are dimmed. The 'border line' between columns D & E is also dimmed (I can understand that).

The written data needs that extra space in that 2nd cell in col E, so that the full sentence can be seen. So the sentence extends from column D thru p/o col E. There are no figures anywhere in column D or E. The figures are all in column F. I should say that all the columns in this data section (actually looks like a Word Table) have borders (except for the 'dimmed' border between D & E); but the rows do not. The row borders are dimmed and I can see in both "Format" and "Print Preview" that there are no "real" border lines for the rows - except for top and bottom of the 'Table'.

The 'non-working' area right next to this 'Table' is totally blank in 'Print Preview'. So I find it odd that this lady here was so concerned and raising can over a few missing cell borders in this superfluous area, in the "working view", where one could see the dimmed cell outlines (which were not "real" borders in the first place). Really odd. Really odd. I do not know what game she is playing but she knows that I don't know anything about Excel - though I am now slowly starting to fathom a bit of it. Somewhere in the distant past I recall someone showing me how to extend data in this type Excel 'spreadsheet' so that it is fully visible instead of truncated within a single cell in a column. So me thinks this is a quite normal thing and easily done (or undone) by any Excel user. But to me, it's all a great mystery. I hope this clarifies things a bit better. Hopefully you can advise some more.

[Essien]

Is it possible for you to send me the file without the data or something and let me look at it if your still having problems.

[Hollyn]

Back again. Looks like fixed the problem. Friend came by and showed me how. Had same problem before. There's an easy fix. He just clicked in and "copied" a "good" cell (empty but w/the border outlines all in place) and then pasted it into the 1st cell of one of the rows which had 4 contiguous borderless cells. This immediately restored ALL the cell borders in that row. Amazing! I'm still wondering what that lady is trying pull on me. If she has 5 years experience working w/ Excel, surely she would know about such a basic feature which was all that was necessary to correct the problem.

In any case, not to worry. All OK w/ Excel again. Got a different battle to fight now. Yesterday had all kinds of problems sending out email w/ attachments to multiple recipients. Round and round the bush. Both Yahoo and Hotmail were not cooperating at all and coming back w/ all kinds of error messages. Finally looked like 2 went out OK; but when jumped back into in-box, had 2 rejects there from the postman - I thought! The messages were prefixed w/ "DAEMON - ..." and too late I recalled that this
was a nasty e-mail bug. Clicked to fast and instantly knew. Full of idiotic misspelled sentences and urging me to click on some links - ha! I don't know if that bug was responsible for my just previous email-send problems or not but if it was, I wonder how because I wasn't aware of any bugs 'til I clicked on that "daemon..." message.

Scanned the system w/ McAfee and AVG but nothing. Still have horrible email problems. Looks like I'll have to check this one out at another forum for email problems. Thanx again for your efforts. Every bit helps me to familiarize myself a bit more w/ Excel. Got top try and find me an email forum somewhere now.