Learning Resources
You can add full or partial borders to any portion of any page of a document. Word provides a variety of built-in page borders, from businesslike to fancy.
You start from the Page Border tab in the Borders and Shading dialog box (Format menu). From there you can choose:
- The type of overall border, from simple box to shadowed to 3-D to a custom style of your design.
- The line style, color, and thickness.
- The artistic style, which can be fun if your document is informal or tied to a special occasion, event, or holiday.
You can preview the design right inside the dialog box, so it's easy to see how your chosen effects will look.
You can also put borders around discrete chunks of text to set them apart from the rest of the document. This adds visual punch to things like headings and direct quotations. You can also use borders to set off tables and graphics, as shown in the figure.
To add a border, you select the text, table, table cell, or graphic. Then you open the Borders and Shading dialog box, click the Borders tab, and choose the style, width, color, and so on. As on the Page Border tab, you can preview your choices right there.
Note that if you're working with AutoShapes (a particular type of Word graphic that you insert by using the AutoShapes command), the method for adding a border differs. After selecting the shape, you use the Line Color 
and Line Style 
buttons on the Drawing toolbar.
Tip If you're working with a table, there's a cool way to quickly add a unified border, shading, and color scheme: use the Table AutoFormat feature. You'll learn more about it in the section after next, "Quick table effects."