Microsoft Excel: Remove Page Break Lines and Hide Them

To hide page-break lines in Excel for Microsoft 365 on Windows, open File > Options > Advanced, find Display options for this worksheet, select the affected sheet, and clear Show page breaks. If you want to remove manual breaks rather than merely hide their lines, use Page Layout > Breaks > Reset All Page Breaks.

What the lines mean

Excel uses page breaks to divide a worksheet into pages when it is printed or saved as a PDF. In Normal view, these boundaries often appear as dotted lines for automatic breaks and solid lines for manual breaks. In Page Break Preview, blue lines show the page boundaries more prominently, and you can drag some of them to change where printed pages begin.

A line on the worksheet is not usually a border or part of the cell formatting. It is a visual guide about pagination. Hiding the guide does not delete worksheet data, change cell borders, or prevent the sheet from printing across multiple pages. That distinction matters: if the goal is a cleaner editing screen, hide the indicators; if the goal is to change printed pages, adjust or reset the breaks and review the print settings.

Hide page-break lines in Excel for Windows

Use the worksheet-specific display option when you are working in Normal view and want the lines gone from the grid:

Open the workbook and select the worksheet that shows the lines.
Choose File > Options.
In the Excel Options window, select Advanced.
Scroll to Display options for this worksheet. If necessary, use its drop-down list to choose the correct worksheet.
Clear Show page breaks, then select OK.

The change applies to the selected worksheet, not automatically to every sheet in the workbook. Repeat the steps for other affected sheets, choosing each one in the drop-down list. If the box is already cleared but lines remain, check whether the sheet is in Page Break Preview; switch to Normal view as described below. Also check that you have selected the sheet whose grid is actually showing the marks.

Switch from Page Break Preview to Normal view

Page Break Preview is designed to make printed-page boundaries easy to see. To leave it, select View > Normal on the ribbon. You can also use the view buttons near the lower-right corner of the Excel window, if they are visible, and choose Normal. This changes the worksheet display, not its print layout.

Switching to Normal view may be all that is needed if the blue page outlines or shaded areas appeared after someone chose Page Break Preview. However, Excel can still show automatic page-break indicators in Normal view, particularly after you have opened Print or Print Preview. If those dotted lines persist, clear Show page breaks in the Advanced options. The two actions solve different display situations: one changes the workbook view, while the other turns off the worksheet’s page-break indicators.

Remove manual page breaks instead of hiding them

A manual page break is an instruction to start a new printed page at a particular row or column. To remove one horizontal break, select a cell in the row immediately below it. To remove one vertical break, select a cell in the column immediately to its right. Then choose Page Layout > Breaks > Remove Page Break. The selected position matters because Excel uses it to identify which break you intend to remove.

To clear all manual page breaks on the current worksheet, choose Page Layout > Breaks > Reset All Page Breaks. This restores automatic pagination rather than forcing every page to begin at the former manual locations. It does not switch off the display of automatic breaks, and it does not guarantee that the sheet will fit on one printed page. Excel still calculates automatic breaks from the paper size, margins, scaling, print area, and content.

Resetting breaks is useful when a sheet has accumulated several manual adjustments and the print layout has become difficult to understand. It can also undo carefully placed page starts, so review Print Preview afterward. If only one break is unwanted, remove that break rather than resetting all of them.

Why lines return or do not disappear

Page-break marks can seem persistent because there are several separate controls and conditions involved. Use this checklist to identify what you are seeing:

The sheet is still in Page Break Preview: choose View > Normal. Hiding the lines in Normal view is a separate setting.
You changed the wrong worksheet: in File > Options > Advanced, check the sheet selected under Display options for this worksheet.
The lines are cell borders: a solid border formatted on cells is not a page break. Select the relevant cells and inspect Home > Borders or the cell formatting before removing anything.
The worksheet was opened in Print Preview: Excel may show automatic break indicators in Normal view afterward. Clear Show page breaks for that sheet if you do not want those indicators.
The print layout changed: edits, scaling, paper size, margins, or a changed print area can move automatic breaks. They are recalculated, not fixed marks that can be permanently erased.

When the lines look like dotted guides, they are usually page-break indicators. A dark line around a particular cell range, especially one that remains unrelated to printing, is more likely a border. Before changing formatting, compare the mark in Normal view and Page Break Preview, and inspect a print preview to confirm whether it is a page boundary.

Change where printed pages break

If the underlying problem is that a report prints awkwardly, hiding the lines only removes the on-screen guides. You may need to change the print layout instead. In Page Break Preview, drag a blue boundary to adjust a page break, or select the relevant row or column and use Page Layout > Breaks > Insert Page Break to add a manual break. Remember that a manual break can be affected by later layout changes and may make the printout harder to maintain.

For a table that spills onto an extra page, check these settings before inserting many manual breaks:

Orientation: under Page Layout > Orientation, choose Portrait or Landscape to suit the shape of the data.
Paper size: use Page Layout > Size to match the paper available to the printer or PDF output.
Margins: adjust Page Layout > Margins if there is unused space around the content.
Scaling: use the scaling controls on the Page Layout tab, or open Page Setup for more print options. Fitting all columns to one page wide can help a wide table, although shrinking too much may make text difficult to read.
Print area: set or clear a print area from Page Layout > Print Area so Excel prints the intended cells rather than surrounding content.

For example, a monthly sales table with twelve month columns may naturally extend across pages in Portrait orientation. Landscape orientation or fitting the sheet to one page wide may be more sensible than inserting a break between arbitrary columns. Conversely, a long list of records may be easier to read over several pages with repeated headings than squeezed onto one page. Check File > Print before sharing the result.

Excel for Mac and Excel for the web

In Excel for Mac, switch to View > Normal to leave Page Break Preview. To hide page-break indicators, open Excel > Preferences > View and clear the page-break display option; wording and organization can vary slightly by Excel for Mac release. To reset manual breaks, use the Page Layout tab’s Breaks menu when it is available. The Windows File > Options path does not apply on a Mac.

Excel for the web has a more limited set of desktop display and page-setup controls. If the browser version does not offer the page-break display setting you need, open the workbook in the Excel desktop app and use the Windows or Mac steps above. You can still use the web version for many ordinary edits, but do not assume that a setting shown in desktop Excel has an identical web control. Check the available print preview before producing a final PDF.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does hiding page-break lines change how Excel prints?
No. Clearing Show page breaks hides the indicators on the selected worksheet; it does not remove page breaks from the print layout. Use Page Break Preview or File > Print to check the actual pages.

How do I remove dotted lines in Excel?
If they are page-break indicators, select View > Normal, then clear Show page breaks under File > Options > Advanced for the affected worksheet. If the dotted marks are cell borders or another kind of formatting, that setting will not remove them.

Can I remove all page breaks at once?
Choose Page Layout > Breaks > Reset All Page Breaks to remove manual breaks on the current sheet. Excel will create automatic breaks based on the current print settings, so page boundaries will still exist and may still be displayed.

Why do page-break lines come back after I close Excel?
Confirm that you changed the right worksheet and saved the workbook. Also check whether you are looking at Page Break Preview or at a different sheet. The automatic breaks themselves are recalculated when content or print settings change; hiding their indicators does not stop that calculation.

Will removing a page break delete rows or columns?
No. Removing or resetting a page break changes pagination, not worksheet contents. It does not delete cells, rows, columns, or data. Still, review Print Preview after changing breaks because the same content may be distributed across pages differently.

Choose the right fix

For a less cluttered worksheet, use Normal view and turn off Show page breaks for that sheet. For a deliberate manual boundary that should no longer affect printing, remove that break or reset all manual breaks. For an awkward printout, adjust orientation, scaling, margins, the print area, or the page boundaries, then inspect Print Preview. Keeping those aims separate prevents a common frustration: hiding the lines makes the grid look cleaner, but it does not redesign the printed pages.

Try it: the Date Difference Calculator: days, months, years and weekdays between two dates, with the DATEDIF formulas.

More in How-to basics

Sources: Function behaviour and menu paths: Microsoft Support documentation for Excel. Method & sources

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