How to Change Gridline Colour in Microsoft Excel Worksheets

By default, Microsoft Excel renders worksheet gridlines in a subtle light grey tone (specifically shade #D4D4D4). While this muted grey provides unobtrusive separation between adjacent rows and columns for everyday number crunching, it is not always optimal across all working conditions. On high-resolution displays or when working with certain monitor colour calibrations, faint grey gridlines can wash out completely. In other contexts, corporate presentation templates and dashboard design may call for darker borders, soft blues, or brand-specific accent hues to enhance cell demarcations.

Microsoft Excel includes a built-in customisation setting that allows you to change the worksheet gridline colour to any shade in the standard or custom colour palette. This setting operates on a per-sheet basis, giving you complete flexibility to style individual worksheets within your workbook without affecting your broader Excel environment.

Important Differences Between Gridlines and Cell Borders

Before customising gridline colours, it is helpful to distinguish between natural worksheet gridlines and formatted cell borders:

• Gridlines: The faint background lines that delineate every cell in the spreadsheet grid. They are a visual UI aid, do not count as cell formatting, and do not print by default unless specifically toggled in the Page Setup menu.
• Cell Borders: Formatting attributes applied directly to selected cells via the Home ribbon or Format Cells dialogue (Ctrl + 1). Borders always print and override background gridlines.

Customising the gridline colour changes the baseline background grid across the entire sheet without altering individual cell border styles or inflating file size with complex range formatting.

How to Change Gridline Colour in Excel Options

You can modify the gridline colour directly through Excel’s Advanced Options window:

1. Open your workbook in Microsoft Excel.
2. Select the specific worksheet tab at the bottom of the screen where you wish to customise the gridline colour.
3. Click the File tab in the upper-left corner of the ribbon.
4. Click Options at the bottom of the left-hand navigation pane to open the Excel Options dialogue window.
5. In the left column of the options window, select Advanced.
6. Scroll down the Advanced pane until you locate the section header labelled Display options for this worksheet.
7. Ensure the dropdown menu next to the header displays the name of your active worksheet (or choose another worksheet tab from the list).
8. Ensure the checkbox for Show gridlines is checked.
9. Click the paint bucket icon next to Gridline color.
10. Choose your desired colour from the Theme Colors or Standard Colors palettes. For an exact hex or RGB code, click More Colors and specify your custom parameters.
11. Click OK at the bottom of the Excel Options window.

Excel updates the active worksheet instantly, rendering every background gridline in your selected colour.

Applying Custom Gridline Colours Across Multiple Worksheets

Because the gridline colour setting is tied to individual worksheets, changing it on one tab will not automatically modify the other tabs in your workbook. However, you can group multiple sheets together before opening Excel Options to apply the colour change across several worksheets simultaneously:

1. Hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard.
2. Click on each worksheet tab at the bottom of the screen that you wish to modify. To select all tabs in the workbook, right-click any tab and choose Select All Sheets.
3. Navigate to File > Options > Advanced.
4. Scroll to Display options for this worksheet.
5. Select your preferred Gridline color.
6. Click OK.
7. Right-click any worksheet tab and select Ungroup Sheets (or click an unselected tab) to exit group mode.

All grouped sheets will now display the unified gridline colour seamlessly.

How to Print Coloured Gridlines in Excel

If you want your custom-coloured gridlines to appear when exporting your worksheet to PDF or sending it to a physical printer, you must enable the gridline print setting:

1. Select the Page Layout tab on the main Excel ribbon.
2. Look for the Sheet Options group.
3. Under the Gridlines section, check the box labelled Print.
4. Press Ctrl + P to preview the print layout. Your coloured gridlines will now be rendered cleanly across every printed page.

How to Restore Default Gridline Colour

If you ever want to revert your worksheet back to Excel’s standard light grey appearance:

1. Go to File > Options > Advanced.
2. Scroll down to Display options for this worksheet.
3. Click the Gridline color palette.
4. Select Automatic at the top of the colour picker.
5. Click OK to save your changes.

The sheet will return to Excel’s default neutral grey gridlines immediately.