How to remove chart border in Excel?
By default, when you insert a chart in Excel, it includes a border around its outer area. While this design can help define the chart visually, there are situations—such as creating cleaner presentations, ensuring visual consistency with document backgrounds, or simply personal preference—where removing the chart border can enhance its appearance and eliminate distractions. This guide will walk you through the process of removing the chart border in Excel, allowing you to achieve a more polished look tailored to your needs.
Aside from cosmetic reasons, removing the chart border can make your charts blend seamlessly into reports or dashboards, especially when displaying multiple charts together. It’s also an effective way to avoid unnecessary lines that may clutter printed documents or screen presentations.
Alternative solutions: For users seeking more granular control over chart outlines, such as adjusting specific edge colors or transparency, you may consider setting the border color to match the background rather than removing it entirely, or using VBA to batch process multiple charts. These approaches are discussed below and can be accessed directly from the table of contents links for easy navigation.
VBA Code Solution: Remove border from multiple charts at once
Remove chart border
To remove the border from a chart in Excel, simply follow these steps:
1. Right-click anywhere within the chart area—the space surrounding the plotted data—and select Format Chart Area from the context menu. If you have both the chart area and the plot area visible, make sure you select the outer chart area rather than the inner plot area for border removal. See screenshot:
2. In the Format Chart Area dialog box (which may appear as a pane on the right side in recent Excel versions), locate and click Border Color in the left pane. Then, select the No line option in the border color options section on the right. This ensures that no outline will be displayed around your chart. See screenshot:
If you do not see the Border Color option directly, make sure you are formatting the Chart Area and not another chart element like the series or legend. Selecting the wrong item can prevent the border style from being changed or may only alter other visual components.
3. After confirming your selection, close the dialog or formatting pane. The border around your chart should now be removed, giving your chart a cleaner look. You can always restore the border by returning to the same settings and choosing a line style if needed.
Removing the chart border is especially useful when integrating charts into corporate templates, presentations, or dashboards where uniform layering and color harmony are needed. It’s recommended to check your print preview to ensure the changes look as expected on both screen and paper.
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Applicable Scenarios:
- Creating print-optimized charts for professional reports.
- Designing dashboards with multiple charts that should visually merge.
- Presentations where minimal distractions are essential.
- Provides a sleek, modern visual style.
- Eliminates unnecessary lines for clarity.
- Makes it easier to match chart backgrounds with worksheet themes.
- Too many borderless charts may reduce visual separation in crowded layouts.
- If your chart area color is similar to your worksheet color, border removal may make the chart harder to notice; consider using subtle shading for distinction if needed.
- If the chart area is not selected properly, the border removal option won’t affect your intended target area.
- Some older Excel versions have slightly different formatting dialogs, so button locations may vary; look for similar options as described.
- If the border does not disappear, confirm you have removed the line from the correct chart element.
- Restart Excel if formatting changes do not display immediately—occasionally, interface glitches need a program refresh.
VBA Code Solution: Remove border from multiple charts at once
If you have several charts on your worksheet and wish to remove borders from all of them in bulk, you can use a simple VBA macro. This method is useful for frequent, repetitive formatting tasks or when working with dashboards consisting of multiple chart objects.
1. Click Developer Tools > Visual Basic. In the new Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window, select Insert > Module, then input the following code into the module:
Sub RemoveAllChartBorders()
Dim chtObj As ChartObject
On Error Resume Next
xTitleId = "KutoolsforExcel"
For Each chtObj In ActiveSheet.ChartObjects
chtObj.Border.LineStyle = xlNone
Next chtObj
End Sub2 After entering the code, click the 
button, or press F5 to execute. This will automatically remove the borders from all charts on the active worksheet. If you need to repeat the operation on another worksheet, switch sheets and run the macro again.
Note: Macros must be enabled in your Excel settings for this solution to work. Remember to save your workbook as a macro-enabled file if you wish to retain the macro for future use.
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