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Can't see borders around table
cells on your screen, even though they print?
Can't see white text on a
black or colored background in a table?
Perhaps you have turned table
gridlines "on." Here is some information about table gridlines, table guidelines,
and cell
borders |
There often is some confusion
concerning the distinction between table gridlines and
table borders (not to mention table guidelines),
what they do, and how they work.
The problem stems from the fact
that table gridlines, table borders, and table guidelines occupy
the same locations in a table. They overlay the same "screen
real estate," and they can affect one another in opposite
ways.
1. Table gridlines are faint gray dotted lines on your screen around
the borders of a table and its cells. They can be toggled on/off
with Tools, Settings, Display, Document, Show Table Gridlines
-- or, more easily in later versions of WordPerfect, with View,
Table Gridlines. They are available to help you see the table's
structure on the screen, so you know where to insert material
in specific cells and guide you in formatting row and column
sizes, etc. They never print. They are similar to the
faint gray page margin lines in this respect (page margins do
not print, they just show onscreen). They occupy the same position
as table borders and table guidelines.
Here's what WP9's Help says about
table gridlines:
"Table gridlines are dimmed,
dotted lines that replace [visible] lines and fill in a table.
Table gridlines speed up the display of a document that contains
many tables or heavily formatted tables. However, tables print
with the lines and fill styles you have selected. You can choose
to always display table gridlines."
These days with fast and powerful
computers with lots of RAM, there's probably little need for
gridlines, which were designed to be helpful as described above.
However, table gridlines -- if ON -- help you see the structure
of table cells in the event that table/cell borders are OFF and
table guidelines are also OFF.
2. Table borders and individual cell lines can be toggled on/off by right-clicking
inside the table and selecting Borders/Fill. They print
if they are toggled on (which is the default for cell lines;
to change default borders and cell line settings, set them to
your preferences and use the Default Settings button under the
Table tab).
Unfortunately, you can see
only one or the other, gridlines or borders/cell lines,
on screen at the same time.
Gridlines (or guidelines, below)
will not impact the printing of table borders or cell lines,
if table borders/lines are ON. Gridlines only impact what is
on screen. If table gridlines are ON -- which is sometimes the
case depending on the setting in Tools, Settings, Display, Document
tab -- you can't see table borders or cell lines (assuming they
are ON).
Gridline display takes precedence
over table border or cell line display. You have to toggle gridlines
OFF (by un-selecting View, Table Gridlines) so that you can see
the table or cell borders onscreen the way they will print.
In WP8 and later versions (and
perhaps in WP7) you can add a "toggle" button to your
toolbar to do this. (See how to create a toolbar button here.)
It's now a standard feature in the Toolbar Editor, under View,
Table Gridlines. Toggling also lets you see any "fills"
such as reversed backgrounds, where the background is black or
some dark color and the text is white or light colored.
3. Table guidelines are also faint gray dotted lines on your screen
around the borders of a table and its cells.
They never print.You should leave guidelines for
tables turned ON (check View, Guidelines, Tables, OK), because
if you remove all border lines and fills from a table and also
have gridlines turned OFF, you won't be able to see the
table's cell boundaries on your screen!
WP9's Help says this about guidelines:
"You can move guidelines in your document to reposition
tables, margins, columns, headers, and footers. Guidelines must
be visible in your document to move them."
Note that guidelines are also
available for margins, columns, and headers/footers. Some prefer
those particular items ON, some prefer them OFF. But as noted,
most users will probably want to leave table guidelines ON all
the time, since they will not obscure table borders or cell lines
and are very useful when table borders or gridlines are turned
OFF.
Notes
and Tips
- If you find that you often accidentally
drag the left margin guideline slightly out of position when
you are trying to select text at that location by clicking your
left mouse button next to the margin, you can remove this annoyance
by clicking on View, Guidelines. Then uncheck "Drag to move
guidelines." Of course, you will now have to set margins
from the Format menu, not by dragging them.
- On some monitors, particularly
LCD monitors, an incorrect screen resolution can cause such faint
lines to fall between pixels and not appear on screen. Please
ensure that the monitor is set to its preferred resolution, both
vertical and horizontal. Otherwise gridlines, guidelines, and
even text underlines can "fall between the cracks."
- If lines, borders, or underlines
do not appear on screen but do appear in a printout, try setting
your monitor's Zoom to a slightly different setting with View,
Zoom or by holding down the <Ctrl> key while you rotate
your mouse wheel.
- If you have the View turned
to Draft mode, guidelines won't display on some
monitors (but gridlines will). Try using Page mode.
- If labels and margins don't
display properly on the screen, it could be a problem with Windows
and flatscreen (e.g., LCD) monitors. From Corel's support database
(Answer ID 207679):
- Modifying the Windows Classic
style in the Display Properties to a darker shade of gray will
resolve this issue. (TIP: Select just a small amount of
darker gray or you might not be able to see toolbar labels.)
- For Windows XP:
- 1. Right click on the Desktop,
select Properties.
2. Select the Appearance tab.
3. Click the Advanced button.
4. Select 3D Objects in the Item dropdown
5. Under Color 1, choose a darker shade of gray.
6. Click OK, then click Apply on the Appearance tab.
7. Click OK, launch WordPerfect.
- The grid lines should be more
visible, the darker the shade of gray you select the more visible
the gridlines will be.
- For Windows Vista:
- 1. Right click on the Desktop,
select Personalize
2. Click on Window Color Appearance
3. Click on Open Classic Appearance
4. Click the Advance button
5. Select 3D Objects in the Item dropdown
6. Under Color 1, choose a darker shade of gray.
7. Click OK, then click Apply on the Appearance tab.
8. Click OK, launch WordPerfect.
- The grid lines should be more
visible, the darker the shade of gray you select the more visible
the gridlines will be.
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Barry MacDonnell's