Excel 2008 : Grid lines missing in spreadsheet

[alsevcik]

My Excel (2008 for Mac) spreadsheets have areas where the faint grid lines are missing. How do I get these to show?

[JBeaucaire]

Tools > Options > View > Gridlines (2003)

Show Gridlines in Preferences (2008) I think....

[alsevcik]

Thanks, but that's not the solution. My cure, so far, is to use the format brush to paint blank cells over the affected ones. That works, but I lose any entries in the cells.

[shg]

It it's like Excel on PC, cells must have no fill in order to see the gridlines. Otherwise you need to use borders.

[alsevcik]

Thanks for helping, but this is not the solution. There is no fill on these cells.

[jujuwillis]

Assuming the Mac version is the same as PC version (looking wise) To view them, On the Ribbon, chose View tab,
in the Show Group, select the gridline check box.

To print them, On Page Layout Tab, the little arrow in the Page Setup group will open the Page Set up dialog box. Sheet tab, select, Print check box

[alsevcik]

Thanks, but apparently the PC and Mac versions have differences. There is a "view" tab, but in the menu thereof there is no "Show" group.

I've discovered a work-around, however. I can use the Format Brush to paint grid lines from another part of the spreadsheet. So, I guess I am happy, now. But, I still don't understand what made the grid disappear in certain areas in the first place.

[jujuwillis]

Think you must have your borders formatted to white instead of automatic. You might want to checkout the display options for grid lines under the File Tab, Options, Advanced, Display on this sheet

[alsevcik]

Again, we run into differences between Excel versions. My version -- 2008 for Mac -- doesn't have an "Options" choice under the "File" tab. In any case, I don't believe I'm having a problem with borders. My problem is with the faint grid lines that normally cover every inch of a spreadsheet. I appreciate your interest though; thanks.

[DRRedler]

This happened to me using Excel 2010 running Windows XP 32-vit on a PC. Not sure if that makes a difference. Gridlines disappeared when I removed some border formatting. This has never happened before in all the years using Excel. To fix I just copied some blank cells with normal faint gridlines and did a paste-special-formatting operation.

[cwb]

alsevcik, I had the same problem with Excel 2007. I just now corrected it based on a comment here. I highlighted the cells that had missing gridlines and then selected "no fill" from the fill drop-down. The faint gridlines reappeared in those random cell blocks. Thanks for posting the question that ultimately solved my problem (and hopefully yours.)

[alsevcik]

THAT'S IT!!!
After 2 years of struggling I now have the answer. Thanks to you.
Best.
AL

[Izandol]

Is this not what shg told you two years ago in this same question and you said there was no fill?

[alsevcik]

Yes it is. The thing is, I had not put a "fill" into any spaces on my spreadsheet, so I thought there wasn't any fill to remove. When I saw your comment recently I decided to give the "no fill" command a try --- and it worked. Wish I had done that 2 years ago, but that's the way it goes.