A couple of weeks ago I wrote a tip for improving your writing based on Excel good practice. This is another one.
When you open Excel, you’re greeted with a grid where each cell has a faint border. This helps when creating a spreadsheet or financial model.
But when you print your spreadsheet or export it to PDF, those borders vanish. Ever wondered why?
You probably haven’t, but if all those borders were included in your print or PDF, your document would look terrible—messy and hard to read.
So why do people make a table in Word and leave the default border around every cell? They aren’t thinking about the reader or how to present their data clearly.
Here’s what I suggest: after inserting a table into your document, adjust the column widths if needed, then remove all the borders. Add back only the ones you actually need.
You might not need any borders at all. You could convey your message with just bold text (like for the total row) or colours.
