Bottom border on a Single cell in Table within Word

Anonymous
2013-03-13T13:11:34+00:00

Hello

I have MS Word 2013 and from the Internet (from within Word) I searched for the keyword [ Form ] and downloaded a form that I am now trying to customize for my own needs.

The whole form is basically a table within the Word document. I want to be able to add a bottom border around a single cell from the table, but It isn't working ! When I add the border, it adds it to the whole row, not just the cell I specified.

The way I am trying to do it, is I right-click in the cell > Table Properties > Borders and Shading > In the Preview in the left, I click the bottom border for the cell, and in the Apply to drop-down I select Cell, then click OK, then OK again.

But it applies it to whole row (which is comprised of two cells), not just the single cell. Here is a screenshot. As you can see, the border is being place underneath the Telephone cell too !

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank You.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2016-09-22T22:17:07+00:00

I have tried to make some systematic testing. The problem with a bottom border being applied to one or more extra cells to the left of the selected cell seems to be related to column widths that are not uniform and/or to horizontally merged or split cells.

Below I have included the conclusions from my tests plus a suggested solution to fix the problem when it occurs. The Office team has received the entire test report.

The test results in Word 2013 and Word 2016 were identical and I was able to provoke the bottom border error in quite a lot of situations. I could also provoke the problem in Word 2007 and Word 2010 but in fewer situations than in later versions.

In Word 2013 and Word 2016, the problem seems to occur most often under the following conditions in case no cell borders have been applied beforehand

  • RULE 1: The selected cell is not in the first or last table row and the selected cell is not the first cell in a row (since the problem always results in extra bottom borders in cells to the left of the selected cell) AND
  • RULE 2: The left and/or right edge of the selected cell is not aligned to the left and/or right edge of a cell above.

RULE 1 seems to apply always.

RULE 2 does not apply always.

The problem does not seem to be influenced by settings like cell margins or Automatically resize to fit contents.

The problem seems only to apply to bottom borders – not top borders.

When checking a cell that has been applied an undesired bottom border, the Borders and Shading dialog box shows no bottom border!

Workaround – suggested solution to fix the problem

You cannot remove the bottoms border directly from the extra cells since such cells do not react as if they have any bottom border.

After testing a number of ways to fix the problem, including the ones mentioned by other users in this thread, I have found that the following workaround works each time and is the easiest to use:

If you apply a bottom border to a selected cell and notice that extra cell(s) to the left get a border too:

  1. Undo at once to remove the applied border.
  2. Select the cell that must have a bottom border + the cell to the left of it.
  3. Apply a bottom border to the two cells.
  4. Select the leftmost of the cells only and remove the bottom border.

*The following has been added 23-Sep-2016:*It appears that Step 4 may not remove the bottom borderfrom the leftmost cell if it is the first cell in a row. Then try to select the cell below the leftmost cell and remove the top border from that cell instead (since the problem seems to never occur in the last row, there should be a cell below the problem cell). This solved the problem in my tests. Even if the right edge of the cell below is not aligned with the right edge of the cell above, the result was correct in my tests and the original problem cell got a correct bottom border.

If this is done using e.g. the Home tab > Paragraph Group > Bottom Border icon or the icon on the Mini Toolbar, it can be done rather quickly.

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  1. Anonymous
    2017-07-22T20:26:33+00:00

    Try the Draw Border pen.

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-09-27T22:06:21+00:00

    I finally figured this out. Under Table properties click the tab that says Options right next to Borders and Shading. Then check off the box that says Allow spacing between cells. You will see multiple borders even with .025  of space. Then you can remove the extra borders on the cells where you don't want them using Borders and Shading for each cell.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-09-24T15:32:40+00:00

    Something that works for me is to select the cell where you want the bottom border, split that cell into 2 columns, apply the bottom border to the left cell of the split, then merge them back into one column.  Works like a charm so far.  I'm in Word 2010.

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-09-24T10:39:33+00:00

    Alternative solution:

    There seems to be an alternative solution that should work with all problem cells and that is quite easy to use. The solution utilizes that the bottom border problem never occurs in the last table row (as far as I have seen). Follow the steps below.

    If you apply a bottom border to a selected cell and notice that extra cell(s) to the left get a border too:

    1. Undo at once to remove the applied border.
    2. Click anywhere in the row below the row with the problem cell to which you want to apply a bottom border.
    3. Split the table (Layout tab > Split Table).*
    4. Apply a bottom border to the relevant cell. Since the cell is now in the last row of a table, the border should be applied correctly.
    5. Join the two tables again by deleting the paragraph that was inserted between them when you split the table.

    This method worked correctly in all the tests I made. I cannot guarantee that it will never cause problems with e.g. column widths when you join the tables again but if no other changes are made than applying the bottom border between the split and join, the tables should join correctly.

    * Instead of using Split Table in Step 3, you can split the table by pressing Ctrl+Enter to insert a page break. A page break always splits a table. In that case, you will have to delete two characters in Step 5 to join the tables: the page break and a paragraph mark.

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