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.

Make sure there are no nested tables involved.

Thanks Stefan, can you please tell me how I can check to see if there are nested tables or not. I have no idea. :/

Display nonprinting marks, for example by pressing the ¶ button on the Home tab. You should be able to tell by looking at the end-of-cell and end-of-row marks if a cell of a table contains another table. Displaying text boundaries would also help. Alternatively, upload an example file (in Word format) to SkyDrive and post a link to it here. I'd be happy to take a look.

I am having the exact same problem in Word 2013. I have displayed printing marks, and there are no nested tables in my table. However, when I attempt to apply a border to a single cell, it applies it to the entire row, and it does this in the entire document (any row). Any suggestions for a solution would be greatly appreciated.

Bottom border on a Single cell in Table within Word

Answer accepted by question author

Anonymous

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:

Undo at once to remove the applied border.
Select the cell that must have a bottom border + the cell to the left of it.
Apply a bottom border to the two cells.
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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Bottom border on a Single cell in Table within Word

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