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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!
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. [See also the Notes below about certain
issues with LCD monitors.]
WordPerfect 9's Help also 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."
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 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 label and margin gridlines or guidelines
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.
- For Windows 7:
- 1. Right click on the Desktop, select Personalize
2. Click on Window Color
3. Click on Advanced appearance settings
4. Select 3D Objects in the Item dropdown
5. Under Color 1, choose a darker shade of gray (or click Other
and choose a RGB value of (for example) from the default of 240,240,240
to 230,230,230).
6. Click OK, then click Apply on the Window Color and 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.
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Barry MacDonnell's