Forum Discussion
Too thick/fat gridlines when printing from excel
When I print a spreadsheet where I have selected/marked for gridlines, the gridlines become much thicker than they should be. They have the same thickness as the cells I have given borders. On the screen everything looks correct. The problem is only on the printout. I get the same problem no matter which printer I choose (has nothing to do with the printer driver). I have the latest operating system and drivers.
1 Reply
Try this for the workarounds for Thick Gridlines in Excel Printouts
- Avoid Overlapping Borders and Gridlines
- If you've applied cell borders, Excel will print those instead of gridlines in overlapping areas.
- Solution: Remove borders from cells where you want only gridlines to appear.
- Use Light Borders Instead of Gridlines
- If gridlines are printing too thick, consider disabling gridlines and using light gray borders manually:
- Select your range → Home tab → Borders → More Borders
- Set a thin line style and a light gray color
- Check Page Setup Settings
- Go to Page Layout → Sheet Options → Ensure Print Gridlines is checked
- Also check File → Print → Page Setup → Sheet tab → Confirm gridlines are enabled
- Export to PDF First
- Sometimes printing directly from Excel causes rendering issues
- Try File → Save As → PDF, then print the PDF instead
- Zoom and DPI Settings
- High DPI settings or zoom scaling can exaggerate line thickness
- Try printing at 100% scale and check your Display Settings for DPI scaling
