WPS Border and Shading helps you add borders or shading to text, paragraphs, pages, and tables; this guide covers 5 core tasks, with 4 available without membership and 1 related to membership styles.
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 |
| Minimum version | WPS Office 2019 and later | Based on the feature scope shown for this function |
About This Feature
Overview
Border and Shading is a document formatting feature in WPS Office for Windows that helps you add border lines and background fill effects to text, paragraphs, pages, or tables. It is useful for highlighting key content, separating sections, and improving document layout.
Core capabilities include:
- Add borders to text or paragraphs, with preset styles such as box, none, and custom, plus line style, color, and width settings.
- Add shading to text or paragraphs with fill colors and optional patterns.
- Clear shading color and return selected content to no fill.
- Add page borders for a whole document or a selected section, with spacing and scope controls.
- Adjust borders and shading for tables or cells through table properties.
This feature is useful for notices, teaching materials, draft contracts, report covers, and table formatting.
System Requirements
| Item | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Operating system | A Windows desktop environment with a currently supported system version |
| App version | WPS Office 2019 or later is recommended |
| Network | No mandatory internet connection is required for local border and shading edits; internet is needed for download, installation, and account services |
| Other | You need to open documents normally in WPS Writer; membership styles require sign-in to the corresponding account |
Download & Installation
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Official download | WPS Office Free Download |
| Check after installation | Open WPS Writer, then confirm that you can find Border or Page Border commands on the Home or Page tab |
Source: WPS Download Center
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, and apply scope. | Word supports adding borders to selected text and customizing style, color, width, and Apply to settings for Text or Paragraph. | Google Docs supports paragraph borders, border width, dash style, border color, background color, and paragraph padding. | Notion supports text color, highlights, callouts, and block styling, but it does not focus on traditional page border controls. | Acrobat supports page-level background and watermark editing for PDFs, but it is not centered on paragraph border editing in a word-processing workflow. |
| WPS Advantages | Advantage: One feature group covers text, paragraphs, pages, and tables. Distinct: You can complete these formatting tasks directly while editing the document. | Compared with WPS: Word offers similar text border controls, but the cited page focuses on text borders rather than a combined text-page-table workflow. | Compared with WPS: Google Docs focuses more on paragraph borders and background color, with page border and table styling not presented in the same help flow. | Compared with WPS: Notion is better suited to block emphasis and page styling, not traditional document page borders or print-oriented layout control. | Compared with WPS: Acrobat is more suitable for PDF post-processing and page background management than everyday document border and shading editing. |
| Official Source | — | Add a border to some text in Word | Change how paragraphs and fonts look | Style and customize your page | Add backgrounds to PDFs in Acrobat on desktop |
Overall Conclusion
If you want to manage borders and shading for text, paragraphs, pages, and tables from one document editing workflow, WPS provides a more centralized path. If your work is focused on collaborative block styling or PDF post-processing, another product may fit that scenario better.
Use Cases
| No. | Scenario | Suitable for | Main issue | Solution |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Highlighting notice content | Administrative staff and teachers | Important content does not stand out enough | Add paragraph borders and shading to emphasize key information |
| 2 | Improving report covers | Students and office users | The page lacks visual hierarchy | Use page borders to improve the cover layout |
| 3 | Emphasizing contract clauses | Office staff | Key clauses are hard to identify quickly | Add borders or shading to text or paragraphs |
| 4 | Separating table content | Finance and operations staff | Table areas are not visually clear | Apply border styles to tables or cells |
| 5 | Organizing teaching materials | Trainers and educators | Sections are hard to distinguish | Combine paragraph borders and shading for a clearer layout |
Membership & Benefits
Free vs WPS Premium
| Capability | Free users | WPS Premium |
|---|---|---|
| Basic borders and shading | ✅ Available | ✅ Available |
| Some artistic page border styles | Partially limited | ✅ More styles available |
| Cloud storage | 1 GB | 20 GB |
| Template downloads | Limited access | More template benefits |
| Basic PDF features | ✅ Available | ✅ Available, with more advanced capabilities |
Source: WPS Office pricing page
Recommendations
| Usage scenario | Recommended plan | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Everyday document formatting and basic border or shading work | Free version | It already covers common text, paragraph, page, and table border tasks |
| More artistic styles, more cloud storage, and broader office benefits | WPS Premium | Better suited to long-term document formatting, cover styling, and multi-device work |
How to Subscribe
- WPS membership center: Subscribe now
Source: WPS Office pricing page