Here’s why 👇
All those borders are clutter. They get in the way of the message.
The vertical lines obviously get in the way of a reader scanning across the rows.
If you have your data in columns that are aligned (left for text, right for numbers) then let the white space between columns do the work of the vertical borders. That’s all you need.
And you don’t need horizontal borders for every because the data is in rows. I often use them to separate the title row from the data but you could do that using bold text or a different font. The only concern is not to have ridiculously wide columns that mean there is too much white space between the items on a row. That will make it difficult for the reader to track across.
Think Goldilocks. There needs to be enough white space but not too much.
And, please, don’t ever use zebra-striping of rows as an alternative to horizontal borders. That might make eye-tracking easier but brings a new question to the reader. Are the darker rows more important? Or the lighter ones?
So next time you add a table to a document, delete the borders from the default table and let the data breathe.
The video shows you how to re-format a table in under 60 seconds.