Grid appears in pasted/linked Excel worksheets

Problem

You copy content from an Excel worksheet, paste or paste/link it into PowerPoint and get a grid pattern between the cells, even though you may have turned all borders off in Excel.

Solution

You need to turn off Grids in Excel.

If you use Office 2007 (the steps are similar in Office 2010)

• Doubleclick the inserted object to edit it in Excel.
• In Excel, choose Office Button | Excel Options | Advanced
• Scroll down to "Display options for this worksheet"
• Remove the check next to "Show gridlines"
• Click OK

That'll remove the gridlines in Excel and when the link updates in PowerPoint, the grids will disappear there.

If you use Office 2003 or earlier:

• Double-click the Excel object to activate it. The Excel menu bar appears and the Excel object is activated for editing.
• Choose Tools, Options
• Click the View tab
• Remove the checkmark next to "Gridlines"
• Click OK
• If the worksheet is embedded, simply click anywhere off it to update it within the PowerPoint slide. If it's linked, save it first, then click off of it to return to PowerPoint.

PowerPoint 2003 doesn't show the gridlines by default but if you open a presentation created in an older version of PowerPoint/Excel that included Excel's grid, the grid will still be there. The steps above will eliminate it.

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