This lesson is part of an ongoing tutorial. Click here for the first part: Using the Table Toolbar

Add a Border to your Word Table

In the previous section, you designed a table that looked something like this one:

The table so far

In this lesson, you'll see how to add a border to the table above.

To add a border for your table, do the following.

Highlight your entire table (To highlight the entire table, click inside the first cell. Hold your left mouse button down, and drag your mouse to the bottom right cell)
With the entire cell highlighted, click on Table from the menu bar
From the drop down menu, click on Table Properties
The Table Properties dialogue box appears
Click the Table tab strip, then click the Borders and Shading button at the bottom
The Borders and Shading dialogue box appears
Make sure you have the Border tab strip selected, as in the image below:

Select the Borders tab

Have a closer look at the left hand side of the Borders dialogue box:

The Settings area

We want a border to go right around our table, so click on Box with the left hand mouse button.

To add a colour and a thicker border, we need the Style section of the Border dialogue box. Change your Style section to match the image on the right of the two below:

Select the Style settings for your border

Obviously, you can choose any settings you like for the Border colour. Fell free to change them from the ones above.

Once you have chosen a border colour and a line style, click the OK button to return to the Table Properties dialogue box. Click the OK button on the Table Properties box to see your borders.

You final table should now look something like this:

The table now has a border