How to Remove Table Lines from Google Docs

Ever since its release, Google Docs has made collaborative online work a dream. You get to use a MS Word-like browser app that’s Cloud-based and allows for unique collaboration options. Although Google Docs is pretty much modeled after MS Word, discrepancies still exist.

Still, Google Docs comes with many useful formatting options. These options, however, may be a bit complex for new users. Some are right there, in your face. While others, like tables and borders, are slightly less apparent. Here’s how to remove table lines in Google Docs, as well as some other useful formatting tips.

Removing Table Borders

First, you’ll need to create a table. To do this, navigate to the Insert menu towards the top of your Google document and click it. Hover over Table in the dropdown menu that appears. Now, select the table size (column x row dimensions) and click to confirm. You should see the table in your document.

If you right-click the table, you’ll see options such as Delete row, Delete column, Delete table, Distribute rows, Distribute columns, and so on. If you want to remove the table borders, find the Table properties option in the right-click list and click it.

A new menu will show from the right, allowing you access to advanced table options. From this menu, you can adjust the column width, minimum row height, cell padding, table alignment, indent, and so on. Most importantly, though, the Color menu allows you to set table border options.

In order to make the borders disappear, you choose the white color in border options, right? Well, this will work when the background is white. However, if the background should change for any reason, the white borders will be apparent and you’ll have to match the background color again.

Furthermore, this may cause some alignment issues. As a rule of thumb, the smaller the border, the better your alignment.

The best way to go here is to change the border size to 0 pt. This will literally make the table border invisible.

Other Useful Formatting Tips

There are many cool things that Google Docs can actually do. It may not be apparent and the app may look like a simplified version of MS Word, but it definitely isn’t.

Fonts

When you look at the toolbar in Google Docs, it’s probably fairly familiar. After all, it’s built after Word’s toolbar. When you click the fonts dropdown menu, you’ll see a number of cool fonts to choose from. Still, this is nowhere near the number that Word offers.

You may not know this, but Google Docs has dozens of more fonts in the same dropdown menu. Just navigate to More fonts and a new window will open. Here, you’ll see a large number of interesting fonts to choose from.

Templates

Some people prefer dealing with formatting on their own. They like the freedom and the creative aspect involved. For most people, this is just a waste of their time. Formatting your own document might seem like a simple task but it has a tendency of being rather daunting.

Although the MS Word also comes with a set of templates, Google Drive frequently updates them and offers a wider, better choice.

Instead of starting from scratch, you can use one of the preset templates available on Google Docs and work from there. The best part here is that you can invite someone to collaborate on the document. This means that you can, for instance, invite your mentor to help you come up with the perfect resume.

Clear Formatting

Sometimes, you want to paste a quote or a body of text into your document. Most likely, the formatting isn’t going to match and you’ll end up with an unseemly passage. To avoid this, you don’t have to rewrite the entire passage by hand. There are two ways to clear formatting of a passage, aligning it with your selected Google Doc formatting.

The first way is to right-click where you want the passage to go and select Paste without formatting. If you’re copying multiple passages at the same time, go ahead and use the Ctrl + V command when pasting. Then, after you’re done, select everything that you’ve pasted from somewhere with different formatting, navigate to Format in the toolbar, and select Clear formatting.

Language Accent Buttons

When you’re writing a text in French, naturally, you’re going to use the French virtual keyboard. This goes for any other language. However, if you’re working on a text in English but plan on mentioning multiple French words, you’re probably going to need accent buttons for that perfect, professional formatting.

There’s an add-on that will make your life easier in this regard. You can find it by opening your Google document and clicking Add-ons, located in the toolbar. Browse for accent-related extensions and find the one that fits your needs.

These add-ons work by adding a toolbar to the side of your page, with different symbols to choose from. Now, instead of having to paste the symbols from Google or having to memorize the Alt + [insert code] codes, adding a symbol is just a click away.

Add a New Page

By default, every Google document should automatically add a new page as you type away. However, if this never seems to happen and you need this feature, you can add a new page manually.

To do this, hover over the location where you want the page to break and left-click there. Then, navigate to Insert in the toolbar and click Break. Then, select Page Break.

Google Docs Tables and Formatting

Google Docs gives you a lot of formatting options to work with. Make sure that you learn how to properly remove table borders and try out all other mentioned formatting tips and tricks.

What other formatting options have you work with in Google Docs? Did you learn about any new ones here? Feel free to hit the comment section below with any questions and tips.