how to add borders in google docs

3 ways to create awesome borders on Google Docs

Passionate about technology, Windows, and everything that has a power button, he spent most of his time developing new skills and learning more about the tech world. Coming from a solid background in PC... Read more

Updated: Feb 8, 2021

Posted: May 2019

If you want to customize your documents to suit your needs, you will need to know how to add borders in Google Docs.
Knowledge about how to put a border around a text in Google Docs can enable you to evidentiate any section of your document with ease.
There are multiple ways to achieve this result, one being an automatically generated border, and another being a border drawn by hand.
To take your customization tools to the next level, the same method described in this guide enables you to also put a border around the page on Google Docs.

How to create awesome borders on Google Docs

Documents, sheets, and slides aren't always easy to organize and find on a computer. The solution comes from Google and it's called Google Docs.

Google Docs is part of a free office-suite provided by Google within the Google Drive service. It includes Google Sheets and Google Slides, and all of this is happening online.

The office-suite is compatible with Microsoft Office file formats and it's available on multiple platforms including Android, IOS, Blackberry, Windows, Chrome OS, and most importantly it's available as a web app.

This application allows creating and editing documents online by multiple users in real time.

Despite all it's features, many users complain about the lack of a bordering tool. If you need borders on a document, there aren't many options and it's a bit of a gimmicky process.

The easiest way to add a border is by creating a 1 by 1 table. For most of the projects this solution should work perfectly.

Additionally, you can create a border by drawing it or by inserting a picture frame file into your document.

In any case, let's find out how to create borders on a Google document.

The first thing that you should do is to check the Templates that the app offers. Maybe one of them fits your project and you won't need to create a border manually.

How can I add page borders in Google Docs?

1. Create a 1 by 1 table

Go to your Google Docs page and in the Start a new document choose Blank.
Now in the Menu click on Insert, select Table, and choose a 1 x 1 grid.
Resize the cell to fit your needs.
In the top-right, you will have the border options: Background colour, Border colour, Border width and Border dash. You can change the format in the manner that you see fit.

That's it. You know have a border on your document and you can add text, pictures, and other things inside the cell created at step 2.

2. Draw the border

Go to your Google Docs page and in the Start a new document choose Blank.
In the Menu click on Insert, select Drawing, and choose New.
In the top menu click on Shape, select Shapes, and choose how you want your border to look.
Once a shape created, a Border menu will appear and from there you can format the border.
In the end, click Save and Close.
The border will appear on your document.
If you want to change the format after you saved, click on the border in the document and a menu will appear. Click Edit.

3. Insert a border picture file

In the end, if you're not satisfied with the result, you can always download and insert a frame/border picture file as a background for the document.

Just be sure to stretch it, if needed, and the resolution is high enough. After that, insert a text frame and you're good to go.

If you're unable to load a file on Google Docs, we have an excellent article that will help you fix the problem right away.

Hope that this solutions worked for you. If you have any other suggestions or question, reach for the comments section below and we'll be sure to check them out.

Frequently Asked Questions

How can I add page borders in Google Docs?

The easiest way to add a border is by creating a 1 by 1 table. For most of the projects this solution should work perfectly. Additionally, you can create a border by drawing it or by inserting a picture frame file into your document.