How to change width of gridlines in Excel

Excel 365
Gridlines help you align shapes and create consistent dimensions for each object. In Excel, gridlines are simulated by column borders, and changing column widths and heights essentially controls your gridlines.
Width of gridlines in Excel 2016

If you want, you can change the width of the gridlines for your worksheet. To do that, follow the next steps:

   1.   Click on the top left corner of the spreadsheet to select all cells in the workbook:

Select all cells in Excel 2016

   2.   Right-click on any column and select Column Width... in the popup menu:

Column Width options in Excel 2016

   3.   In the dialog enter the new value for width and click OK

Column Width dialog group in Excel 2016

Note: You can calculate the new width, but if you would like to change grid for aligning shapes, your new width should be the same that current height:

Column Height group in Excel 2016
  • If you are using the default font of Calibri 11, the standard row height is 15 pts, which equals 20 pixels. To create the grid, change the column widths to 2.14 (= 20 pixels).

    The units for Excel column widths are based on the average number of characters that will fit within a cell.

  • If you are using another font, simply drag and drop selected cells to new width:
Changing a Column Width group in Excel 2016

See also this tip in French: Comment changer la largeur du quadrillage dans Excel.

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