How to Get Rid of Gridlines in Excel Chart

Excel chart gridlines getting in the way of a clean presentation? They're meant to help guide the eye, but often they just add visual noise that distracts from your data's story. This guide will show you several quick and easy ways to remove them, leaving you with a sleek, professional-looking chart.

Graphed

Build AI Agents for Marketing

Build virtual employees that run your go to market. Connect your data sources, deploy autonomous agents, and grow your company.

Build Your First Agent

Why Remove Gridlines in the First Place?

Before we jump into the "how," let's briefly touch on the "why." In the world of data visualization, there's a principle called the "data-ink ratio," coined by statistician Edward Tufte. The idea is simple: a large share of the ink on a graphic should be dedicated to presenting the actual data, and as little as possible to anything else.

Gridlines are non-data ink. While they can be useful for helping users pinpoint exact values on a complex chart, they often create a cluttered "jail cell" effect around your data. Removing them helps your audience focus on the important part: the trends, patterns, and insights your chart is trying to communicate.

You'll often want to remove gridlines for:

• Presentations: To create clean, compelling visuals for a slide deck.
• Dashboards: When the chart is part of a larger dashboard, a clean look helps prevent information overload.
• Reports & Publications: To give your reports a polished, modern, and professional appearance.

Of course, keeping gridlines can be helpful if your audience needs to look up precise values. In those cases, a good compromise is making them a very light gray so they provide context without demanding attention. But for now, let's make them disappear.

Method 1: The Quickest Fix with the Chart Elements (+) Button

For modern versions of Excel (Excel 2013 and newer, including Microsoft 365), this is by far the fastest and most intuitive method. Excel puts a handy little toolkit right next to your chart.

Here’s how it works, step by step:

1. Click anywhere on your chart to select it. When you do, you’ll see three small icons appear in the top-right corner of the chart box. We're interested in the top one, which looks like a plus sign (+). This is the 'Chart Elements' shortcut.
2. Click the + icon to open a dropdown menu of all the different elements you can add or remove from your chart, like a chart title, axis titles, or a legend.
3. In this list, you'll see an option for 'Gridlines' with a checkmark next to it. Simply uncheck the box to instantly remove all gridlines from your chart.

That's it! Your gridlines are gone.

AI Agents for Marketing

Crash Course

Graphed

Free PDF · the crash course

AI Agents for Marketing Crash Course

Learn how to deploy AI marketing agents across your go-to-market — the best tools, prompts, and workflows to turn your data into autonomous execution without writing code.

Download the PDF

Pro Tip: Removing Only Specific Gridlines

What if you want to keep the horizontal lines but get rid of the vertical ones? The Chart Elements menu has you covered.

• Instead of unchecking the main box, hover your mouse over the 'Gridlines' option in the list.
• An arrow will appear to the right. Click it to open a sub-menu.
• Here, you'll see a list of different gridline types, such as Primary Major Horizontal and Primary Major Vertical.
• Uncheck the specific ones you want to remove while leaving the others active. This gives you precise control over which gridlines appear on your chart.

Method 2: Use the Chart Design Ribbon

If you're someone who prefers using the main Excel ribbon at the top of the screen, you can access the same controls there. This method works well and is preferred by many longtime Excel users.

1. Start by clicking on your chart. When it's selected, you’ll notice two new contextual tabs appear on the ribbon: 'Chart Design' and 'Format'.
2. Click on the 'Chart Design' tab to open up all the primary chart editing tools.
3. On the far left of the 'Chart Design' ribbon, click the 'Add Chart Element' button.
4. This will open a large dropdown menu. Hover your mouse over the 'Gridlines' option in this menu.
5. A side menu will appear with options like Primary Major Horizontal, Primary Major Vertical, and so on. You can uncheck them one by one here to remove them.

Many find this method feels a bit slower than the Chart Elements button, but it accesses the same features and is just as effective.

Method 3: The Manual "Click and Delete" Technique

Sometimes, the most direct approach is the best one. You can actually select the gridlines directly on your chart and delete them just like any other object.

1. Carefully move your mouse until your cursor is directly over one of the gridlines you want to remove (for example, a horizontal one).
2. Click once. You will see small circles, or "handles," appear at both ends of all the horizontal gridlines, indicating they are all selected.
3. With the gridlines selected, simply press the Delete key on your keyboard.

They will vanish instantly. If you have both horizontal and vertical gridlines, you will need to repeat this process - first clicking and deleting the horizontal set, then clicking and deleting the vertical set.

Quick tip: If you are having trouble selecting a gridline, try zooming in on the spreadsheet to make it an easier target.

Method 4: Full Control with the 'Format Gridlines' Pane

This method gives you the most control. Not only can you remove gridlines, but you can also make subtle adjustments, like changing their color to a light gray instead of deleting them entirely. This is for users who want complete design control.

1. Right-click on any of the gridlines inside your chart.
2. A context menu will pop up. At the bottom of this menu, click 'Format Gridlines…'.
3. This action will open the 'Format Gridlines' task pane on the right-hand side of your screen. This is the command center for everything related to that chart element.
4. At the top of the pane, under 'Line,' you'll see a few options. Simply select the 'No line' radio button.
5. The gridlines will immediately disappear from your chart. Poof!

Graphed

Build AI Agents for Marketing

Build virtual employees that run your go to market. Connect your data sources, deploy autonomous agents, and grow your company.

Build Your First Agent

An Alternative to Deleting: Fading into the Background

While you're in the 'Format Gridlines' pane, notice the other options. Instead of choosing 'No line,' you can select 'Solid line' and then use the 'Color' and 'Transparency' sliders. This is how you can make your gridlines less distracting without completely removing them. A good practice is to change the color from black or dark gray to a very light shade of gray. This way, they're still there for reference but fade into the background, allowing your data to shine.

Method 5: Remove Gridlines with a VBA Macro (for the Power Users)

If you find yourself repeatedly creating charts and removing gridlines, you can automate the process with a simple VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) macro. This is an advanced technique, but it’s surprisingly easy to set up and can be a huge time-saver.

Step 1: Open the VBA Editor

Press Alt + F11 on your keyboard to open the VBA Editor. In the new window, go to Insert > Module to open a blank code module.

Step 2: Paste the Code

Copy and paste the following code into the module window:

Sub RemoveAllGridlines()
    ' A simple macro to remove gridlines from the selected chart

    ' First, check if a chart is actually active
    If ActiveChart Is Nothing Then
        MsgBox "Please select a chart and run the macro again.", vbInformation, "No Chart Selected"
        Exit Sub
    End If

    ' Turn off all major and minor gridlines
    With ActiveChart
        .HasMajorGridlines = False  ' For the primary value (Y) axis
        .HasMinorGridlines = False  ' Just in case minor gridlines are on

        If .HasAxis(xlCategory, xlPrimary) Then
            .Axes(xlCategory, xlPrimary).HasMajorGridlines = False 'For the primary category (X) axis
            .Axes(xlCategory, xlPrimary).HasMinorGridlines = False
        End If

        If .HasAxis(xlValue, xlPrimary) Then
            .Axes(xlValue, xlPrimary).HasMajorGridlines = False
            .Axes(xlValue, xlPrimary).HasMinorGridlines = False
        End If
    End With

End Sub

AI Agents for Marketing

Crash Course

Graphed

Free PDF · the crash course

AI Agents for Marketing Crash Course

Learn how to deploy AI marketing agents across your go-to-market — the best tools, prompts, and workflows to turn your data into autonomous execution without writing code.

Download the PDF

Step 3: Run the Macro

Close the VBA Editor to return to Excel. Now, simply click on any chart you want to clean up, press Alt + F8 to open the macro list, select 'RemoveAllGridlines', and click 'Run'. The gridlines on your selected chart will be removed instantly. You can even add this macro to your Quick Access Toolbar for one-click access.

Final Thoughts

Creating a visually appealing and easy-to-read chart is less about what you add and more about what you take away. Excel gives you a variety of ways to remove distracting gridlines, from the super-fast Chart Tools menu to the precision of the Format pane, and even automation through VBA for those big projects.

We know that getting your data ready and then spending more time cleaning up visuals in spreadsheets can feel redundant. At Graphed, we automate this whole process. Instead of building charts and manually tweaking every element like gridlines and chart titles, you can just ask a question like "show MoM revenue growth as a line chart" and get a clean, polished, presentation-ready visual instantly. We connect a single time to your data sources from tools like your Shopify, your advertising platforms, and CRM of your choice to get your up-to-date company progress.