Table Cell Border Issues

Question

I am having trouble getting only certain cells in a table to have a bottom border. When I select certain cells and click to add a bottom border, it applies the border to the whole line. (seems to mainly happen on the last cell in the row) Please see attached photos for illustration. I've seen a couple work-arounds posted, but they don't help. P.S. The vertical line after "Child:" is my cursor, not another border line.

Answer 1

I really appreciate all the time you are taking to help me out. So, I was able to replicate the fix from your video...

But there's a catch:

When I remove the borders from the adjacent cells, it goes back to doing the same thing (adding a border to the whole line). Even if I go through the same exact steps as your video fix (putting cursor in cell and opening the border window to select "cell").

I can add a bottom border to the cell that includes "Relationship to Child", but if I try to add it to the last cell it adds the border to the whole row.

Also, yes, even if I copy the table into a new file. In fact, it happened again yesterday in a new document. I guess I have found a work-around by removing inside borders from the corresponding cells, but there really should be a more straight forward way of adding a bottom border to a single cell.

Lastly, I should have shared earlier, I am using Version 1803 (Build 9126.2336 Click-to-Run)

Answer 2

Hi NK_5350,

Thanks for your update in PM.

Per my check in this document, I find the following points for your reference:

1.If we select the blank cell behind Relationship to Child and use custom border, I can reproduce the situation as you mention on my side.

2.If we just place cursor in the cell instead of selecting it and use custom border to apply to Cell, the underline can be added in the current blank cell as shown in the following figure:

Please check if it also takes effect on your end. (The forth red range is my cursor place.)

Regards,

Eli

Answer 3

From your screen shot, it appears that you may be using cells of varying width in successive rows. In previous cases where this problem was reported, the solution turned out to be making the columns equal in every row, applying the borders as needed, and then resizing the cells as required.

Answer 4

In a quick test, I can't reproduce the issue here. If you apply borders to the whole row first and then selectively remove the ones that you don't want, does that work?

Note that displaying table gridlines and nonprinting marks and then recreating the screen shot would give us a clearer view of what you are dealing with (cell widths, merged cells etc.).

Answer 5

Hi NK_5350,

Based on my test in Word version 1812, I can add the corresponding border in the single cell. You could select the cell and right-click to open Table property >Access Column to check if the both cells are separated cells.

In the meantime, you could also try select the cell including "Relationship to Child" to try removing the button border to see if it will also affect that in the right blank cell.

If the issue remains, we would like to collect the affected simple file via Private Message to help check it.

Regards,

Eli