The grid is a view option, a visual aid that is not stored in the document. The final output (print or PDF) shows only borders. Borders are formatting attributes stored in the document. Surely, the 4 loony bins run Windows+Excel on all work stations. That program behaves completely insane when any cell back color (formatting attribute) covers the helping grid (view option). Unfortunately, LibreOffice mimics this imbecility just for the sake of looking Excelish.
In AOO this is configurable in ToolsOptionsCalcView'Grid Lines' You should replace this loser suite with the real Excel thing if the control freaks mean a lot to you. If you're talking about within the Calc spreadsheet, select the range of cells you want to hide the grid lines and then right clickformat cellsBorderschoose 'White' for the border lines color. Then, in the box to the left, click on the appropriate vertical / horizontal lines to be changed. If you're wanting this done on the printed output, after you've defined the print range, click on FilePage PreviewFormat PageSheet ( check to see that the box next to Grid is unchecked ). I avoid fiddling with borders unless it's the very last thing and I have nothing better to do It never comes out quite right without a lot of fiddling.
I think this is because, first, a spreadsheet is not a table. A table is what we want, but that's not the way Calc works. And second, a spreadsheet is not a platform for creating applications or forms. Again, that's what we want, but it's not what a spreadsheet is designed to do. Finally, Calc has not had the benefit of years of intensive tweaking (like Excel) to make it do those things we want but that spreadsheets don't do well.
Changing Table Styles is similar in Excel 2010 ( Windows) and Excel 2011 (Mac) yet the Ribbon is much different. The Mac version has a default Tables tab on the Ribbon. The Windows version only shows the Table Tools tab when a Table is active.
All that aside, you may find things go somewhat easier if you change the color of the grid lines under Tools Options OO.org Appearance Spreadsheet Gridlines. I generally set them to some (very) light color and leave it at that, but you can set them to white and then add borders where you want them.
Note: that setting is for the application; it isn't stored in the sheet and it won't have any effect on the appearance of the sheet when someone else opens it. If you're concerned about the appearance when someone else opens the document, you're building an application and that's not what Calc is. If you need absolute control over the appearance, send them a pdf I've never had much luck trying to use cell styles to apply a border, because I want the border to be independent of the other formatting in a cell but the styles combine everything together. You have to have separate styles for every different combination of border and the other formatting. It works better to just add the borders directly, after all the other formatting is finished. Jack Wells wrote:My Experience: Select Cells Click Format Cells Click 'Borders' tab Color is greyed-out (broken) Select Style '- none -' Click OK Nothing changed Click Format Cells My changes were reverted.
As 'asknak' pointed out. You're aware this is an OpenOffice thread, right? Because your signature mentions LibreOffice And, while I'm here, if you've used both, how do they compare, mainly in terms of the document and spreadsheet apps?
I've yet to use LibreOffice but have wondered if I might be missing out.