Word's options for borders in a document are moderately comprehensive and allow you to create a clear-cut layout or decorative design. You can apply borders to things like paragraphs, pages, table cells, etc. Learn how to set borders (along with shading) in your documents with the following articles.

Tips, Tricks, and Answers

The following articles are available for the 'Borders and Shading' topic. Click the article''s title (shown in bold) to see the associated article.

   Adding a Drop Shadow to a Text Box
Drop shadows add a nice touch to text boxes, making it seem like they are hovering above the page. Here's the simple steps you need in order to add a drop shadow to your text boxes.

   Adding Borders to Paragraphs
Want to draw attention to a particular paragraph? A great way to do it is with a border. Word allows you to easily add borders, as described in this tip. You can add a pre-defined border or a custom one; it is up to you.

   Adding Drop-Shadows to Paragraphs
Drop shadows are a style of paragraph border used to enhance the visual impact of a paragraph. They are also a great way to make sure your text really pops off the page.

   Basing Headers and Footers on the Previous Section
Word treats the headers and footers in a document independently, based on the section in which they appear. This means that the headers and footers in one section can be different from those in the previous section—or you can instruct Word to continue the headers and footers from the previous section. This tip examines some of the interactions that these settings can cause within a document.

   Borders on Multiple Paragraphs with Differing Indents
When you place a border around a paragraph, the position of that border is determined, partially, by the indent with which the paragraph is formatted. If you have multiple paragraphs with borders and those paragraphs have different indents, then that can play havoc with your borders.

   Changing Paragraph Borders
Word allows you to easily add borders to a paragraph of text. If you want, you can even change each side of the border to be different from the other sites. This tip shows how this is done.

   Chopped Off Page Borders
Tired of your page borders not printing out as you expect? The problem could be due to any number of settings or conditions. Here's the things you can check out.

   Controlling Where a Full-page Border is Printed
When you add full-page borders to your document, you may be bothered to find out that one or more sides of the border don't actually appear on the printout. If this happens to you, then you can apply the techniques in this tip to make sure that the border prints as desired.

   Creating a Full-Page Border
Borders are easy to add around text or entire paragraphs. It may be surprising to you to learn that Word can just as easily place borders around entire pages. This tip explains how you can add this touch.

   Deleting Paragraph Borders
Got a document that has a border around some paragraphs? Here's how you can get rid of the border in the fastest way possible.

   Drop Shadows for Tables
When adding borders and shading to a document's elements, Word allows you to quickly add drop shadows to paragraphs, text boxes, and other objects. What you cannot easily do is to add a drop-shadow to a table. This tip explains different ways you can still achieve the desired results.

   Extra Shaded Lines
Put a page break at the beginning of a shaded paragraph and you may be surprised at what you get on your printout. This tip examines the problem of extra shaded lines at the bottom of a printed page and what you can do to get rid of them.

   Highlighting Information Using Shading
Need to draw attention to some text in your document? You can do it by applying some fast and easy shading to your text.

   Non-printing Page Borders
With your page border in place, you might be surprised if you don't see one side of the border (or all sides) print out with your document. Here's the reason for the missing border sides and what you can do about it.

   Removing Automatic Lines
Type a few dashes, underscores, or equal signs, and you could end up with a full-width line in your document. This is normal behavior for Word, but it may not be the behavior you want. This tip explains why you get these types of lines and how you can get rid of them.

   Removing the Box from a Text Box
Insert a text box, and it is automatically formatted to have a border around it. Getting rid of the border is easy, if you follow the steps in this tip.

   Setting the Distance between Text and Borders
Add a border around a piece of text (such as a paragraph), and Word makes some assumptions about the placement of that border relative to the text. Here's how to adjust the distance between text and any borders you may add.

   The Line that Won't Go Away
Have you ever had a line appear on your document that you can't seem to get rid of? It could be due to a built-in line-generating feature in Word. This tip explains the feature, shows how to control it, and finally discloses how to get rid of those bothersome lines in your document.

   Understanding Page Border Art
Add some artwork around the border of your printed page, and you may not know where that artwork comes from. You may also want to add your own graphics to be used as page borders. Because Word uses a proprietary format for this type of graphic, adding your own artwork may not be possible.

   Using Text As a Page Border
Word allows you to add page borders to a document, but you might find the options in this area too limiting. What if you want to create your own page borders or use text as a page border? This tip explains how you can accomplish your designs.