Is there a way to hide gridlines in Numbers?

You could also set them to transparent by selecting the table in the sidebar > using the format bar for borders > setting the colour box to the white coloured square with the red diagonal line .

Message was edited by: Ashka

Tim,

I don't see the problem here. Yes, gridlines can be considered as borders and one may think of them as one in the same. However, this is not an all-or-nothing situation. You just need to white-out, or if you prefer, make transparent any of the portions of your table you choose. The table at the left below has all grid lines whited out. In the table at the right, gridlines in the lower portion were made transparent.

pw

It doesn't matter if you are setting borders over gridlines or removing gridlines the system is the same.
The easiest way would be to remove all the gridlines by setting the line option to NONE then set the borders you require.
If the line is set to NONE instead of changing the colour the grid will show faintly when selected.

Copy of Setting Borders Post:
The Border options are on the format bar but the Border options in Inspector might be easier to follow.

NOTE: Blue double lines show which borders are selected, they disappear when the borders have been changed.

Inspector > Tables > Cell Borders or Format bar
First select the cell / cells in your Table or select the Whole table in the sidebar > select which borders you want to change in the Inspector > Then select the line but remember Thin will not allow you to change the next box which is the point size of the line. > next box is color.

If you just want to select separate lines in the table select "allow border selection" on the Menu bar Table dropdown.

If you get a mess which we all do at times Select the whole table in the side bar and set the Line option box to None and start again.

Tim,

Now I see where you are coming from and understand why you consider gridlines and borders to be separate entities. Regretfully, i am unaware of any such feature in Numbers -- hopefully other Forum members will have an answer. Not knowing what your tables look like in terms of the positioning and quantity of the borders to be retained, I can think of only three options -- none of which you will find palatable:

1) White-out all gridlines and replace border as suggested in an earlier response by Ashka
2) White-out the areas not involving borders
3) Leave the table "as is" with gridlines showing

A fourth option is to white-out all gridlines and not replace borders, but I assume this is totally unacceptable. Sorry.

Best wishes and Good Luck,

pw

Hello all of you

I looked in the AppleScript's dictionary.
Alas, it doesn't offer access to attributes like cell borders.
So, we have no way to treat the problem.
I will look in the Index.xml if we may do the job the brute force way.
I think that it will be difficult as there are numerous default items defined and it would be unsafe to change them.

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE samedi 14 février 2009 16:14:25)

Grid lines and borders are different.

OP: *If you click out of a layout gridlines disappear.* But I don't see a way to turn them off.

Gridlines cover borders and make it difficult to see if you have borders on certain cells.

As much as I try to use Numbers instead of Excel. Sometimes I'm not sure why. Excel works pretty well for many things.

I am really surprised that Apple missed this very handy feature, which I use all the time in Excel. In fact my defaul option in Excel is to have my gridlines turned off, then I make my borders accordingly.

A single button or selection to show or not to show gridlines (NOT borders) is a very fundamental feature of spreadsheets for many people.

I guess I am going to have to go back to using Excel because having to make my gridlines transparent simply will take too much time.

I really like Apple's iWork programs but it is unfortunate when your run across features like this that aren't available as it causes users to go back to the dark side 🙂.

Ok, I just did what the person recommended above which was to highlight the particular cell(s) that I do not want gridlines(borders) and make them white. Yikes, took me 5 minutes to do that. In Excel it took me 3 seconds.

Apple... you are doing great but we need at least comparable functionality to switch.

Yes there is a way to do this.
In excel, you go to the Excel menu (rather than the file, view, etc pulldown menu). Go to preferences.
On the right, you have Window Options.
Click in the gridlines box to turn them on or off.
You're done!

Ok, here is how to do it. Watch the video below. I wrote bit of a nasty post here a few weeks ago and I need to retract it 🙂 Numbers is a very cool spreadsheet program and I now, after using it for several days and watching the tutorials, like it much better than Excel actually.

Here is how to turn off gridlines in Numbers or the correct terminology is changing the cell border colors or just border colors. It is very easy.

http://screencast.com/t/F9vuRE1xFold

Message was edited by: wbweston

wbweston wrote:
Here is how to turn off gridlines in Numbers or the correct terminology is changing the cell border colors or just border colors. It is very easy.

http://screencast.com/t/F9vuRE1xFold

What some replies, including this one, seem to be missing is the OP's desire (not actually clearly stated until his third post, copied below) to be able to turn off/hide the default 'gridlines' that Numbers applies to the imported Excel sheet +while retaining any 'borders' that have been applied in Excel+.

Tim Murray2:
I understand the process. But the thing is that I get sent large Excel sheets with a number of custom borders already in place. Sure, I could travel around the sheet and deal with specific areas where I don't want borders, but it would take forever. And select-all, followed by changing the borders, ends up changing everything.

What I was hoping to hear was there was a setting I had missed similar to Excel's Preferences > View > Show Gridlines.

From his description, Excel adds a 'border' over the default grid line as a separate item. Either may be removed/hidden without affecting the other.

In Numbers, 'borders' appear to be applied by modifying the weight and/or colour of the existing 'gridline' segment(s). As each 'border'/'gridline segment' only a single object, it's not possible to remove/hide only the 'border' or only the 'gridline'.

It is possible to do what the OP describes, but as noted previously by him and by wbweston, the process is tedious to say the least, particularly with a sheet on which there are multiple separate areas marked with borders.

Sounds like time to *Provide Numbers Feedback* (via the Numbers menu) to Apple and make the feature request.

Regards,
Barry

The OP said he gets large Excel spreadsheets with custom borders and he wants to keep all custom borders and turn off the rest. One solution is for the sender of these spreadsheets to turn off gridlines prior to sending the file. Numbers is importing WYSIWYG from Excel. If there are gridlines in Excel, they are imported as borders in Numbers. No gridlines in Excel, no borders (other than the custom ones) in Numbers and there will be gridlines only when the table is selected.

Badunit wrote:
One solution is for the sender of these spreadsheets to turn off gridlines prior to sending the file.

Sounds reasonable to me. I would hope that Terry tries that and gets back to us on how it works.

Regards,
Barry