WPS Borders and Shading on macOS helps you format text, paragraphs, pages, and tables with border lines and fill effects; this guide covers 5 core tasks, with 4 available without membership and 1 membership-related item.
At a Glance
| Metric | Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Core tasks | 5 | Matches the number of rows in the How-to Index |
| Available without membership | 4 | Matches the number of Free rows in the index |
| Membership-related items | 1 | Matches the number of membership-related rows in the index |
About This Feature
Overview
Borders and Shading in WPS Office for Mac is a document formatting feature for Writer that lets you add border lines and background fill effects to text, paragraphs, pages, and tables. It is useful for highlighting key content, separating sections, and keeping page layouts visually consistent.
Core tasks include:
- Add borders to text or paragraphs with preset styles, line styles, colors, and widths.
- Apply shading colors to text or paragraphs, with optional pattern styles.
- Remove shading and return content to a no-fill state.
- Add page borders for a document or section and adjust border spacing.
- Set borders and shading for tables or selected cells.
This feature is useful for notices, teaching materials, contracts, structured reports, and table-heavy documents.
System Requirements
| Item | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Operating system | A Mac device that can run WPS Office for Mac normally |
| App version | It is recommended to use the latest version of WPS Office for Mac |
| Network | No mandatory internet connection is required for local formatting tasks; internet is needed for download, sign-in, and membership verification |
| Other | You need an editable Writer document; page border and table border tasks are easier to manage in editable files |
Download & Installation
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Official download | WPS Office Free Download |
| Installation method | Download the Mac installer, follow the setup prompts, and launch WPS Office |
| Post-install check | Open a Writer document and confirm that border-related options are available under tabs such as Home or Page |
Source: WPS download page
Compare with Alternatives
| Dimension | WPS | Microsoft | Notion | Adobe | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capability Summary | Supports borders and shading for text, paragraphs, pages, and tables, with controls for line style, color, width, scope, and page spacing. | Word officially supports borders for selected text, page borders, and shading for words or paragraphs through Borders and Shading settings. | Google Docs product pages focus on collaboration, templates, smart building blocks, and pageless documents, and do not describe a native workflow equivalent to traditional text and page borders plus shading. | Notion supports text styling, highlights, dividers, quotes, callouts, and color changes for blocks, but it is not positioned as a traditional page-based border and shading tool. | Adobe Acrobat supports adding background graphics and enhancing finished PDF pages, which is closer to post-edit PDF styling than live word-processing border and shading work. |
| WPS Advantages | Advantage: one feature area covers text, paragraph, page, and table formatting. Distinct: you can apply these effects directly while editing the document. | Compared with WPS: Word has clear support for text borders, page borders, and shading, but the official pages used here describe these tasks across separate help pages rather than as one combined formatting workflow. | Compared with WPS: Google Docs emphasizes online collaboration and smart document creation, while the official product page does not describe the same traditional border-and-shading controls. | Compared with WPS: Notion is stronger for block-based organization and visual callouts, while WPS is closer to conventional document page formatting. | Compared with WPS: Acrobat is better suited to enhancing completed PDFs, while WPS focuses on editing document formatting during writing and layout work. |
| Official Source | — | Add a border to some text in Word Add a border to a page Apply shading to words or paragraphs | Google Docs product page | Style and customize your page Types of content blocks | Enhance your PDF |
Overall Conclusion
If you need one document workflow for text, paragraph, page, and table borders and shading, WPS keeps these tasks more closely grouped for everyday formatting work. Microsoft Word also provides comparable controls, while Google Docs, Notion, and Adobe focus more on collaboration, block-based editing, or PDF finishing workflows.
Use Cases
| No. | Scenario | Suitable for | Main challenge | How this feature helps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Highlighting notices | Admin staff, teachers, students | Important paragraphs do not stand out enough | Add borders or shading to text and paragraphs |
| 2 | Structuring contracts | Office staff, legal teams | Clauses and sections are hard to distinguish | Use paragraph borders and page borders to separate content |
| 3 | Styling cover pages or section pages | Editors, content teams | The page lacks visual hierarchy | Add page borders and adjust spacing |
| 4 | Organizing table content | Finance and project teams | Key values in tables are hard to spot | Apply borders and shading to tables or cells |
| 5 | Cleaning up old formatting | All users | Existing shading is no longer needed | Remove shading and restore a plain background |
Membership & Benefits
Free vs WPS Premium
| Capability | Free users | WPS Premium |
|---|---|---|
| Basic borders and shading | ✅ Available | ✅ Available |
| Basic page border settings | ✅ Available | ✅ Available |
| Some art border styles | Limited | ✅ Available |
| General cloud space and template benefits | Basic allocation | Higher allocation and more benefits |
Source: WPS Office pricing page
Recommendations
| Usage scenario | Recommended plan | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Everyday document formatting and basic emphasis | Free | Covers common text, paragraph, page, and table border tasks |
| Frequent layout work or a need for more decorative styles | WPS Premium | Better suited to users who want more style options and broader membership benefits |
How to Subscribe
- Membership page: Subscribe to WPS Premium
Source: WPS Office pricing page