How to Insert Excel Table in Gmail with Borders [Tutorial]

This post explains how to insert an Excel table in Gmail with borders, a super useful tip in many situations. For example, if you want to send a reminder of outstanding liabilities to a customer, you can copy and paste the outstanding liability statement from Excel into the body of your email, then add a salutation, complimentary close, and send it.

To make your emails more attractive and professional, you can apply some simple logic. You can insert subscript and superscript characters, and insert tables in Gmail, but there is a simple workaround for tables.

Many of you have probably tried to insert Excel tables in Gmail in the past. This was not working, but it is working now. However, you may not see the borders sometimes.

Here are quick tips on how to insert an Excel table with borders in Gmail:

Steps to Insert an Excel Table in Gmail with Borders

Here is the correct way to insert an Excel table with borders in Gmail.

Select the table you want to copy and paste into the Gmail body.

Click Format > Format cells to open the Format Cells dialog box.

Click the Border tab.

Under Style, select a line style other than None.

Under Color, select the color you want to apply to the table border.

Click the Outline and Inside borders presets to apply the border with the selected color and style.

Click OK.

Press Ctrl + C to copy the table.

Open Gmail and compose a new email.

Place your cursor in the body of the email where you want to insert the table.

Press Ctrl + V to paste the table.

How to Insert a Table with Borders in Gmail Using Google Sheets

If you already have a table in Google Sheets, you can copy and paste it directly into Gmail. Just make sure that the “Gridlines” option is checked in the View menu > Show in Google Sheets.

Unlike Excel, you don’t need to add borders in Google Sheets by default. You can add borders if you want a different border color or style than the gridlines.

Additional Tip: Add Subscript and Superscript Characters in Gmail

Assume you want to insert H₂O₂ in your Gmail. To do this, you can enter the following formula in any blank cell in Google Sheets or Excel and then copy and paste the result into the cursor position in your email:

="H"&CHAR(8322)&"O"&CHAR(8322)

If you want other similar formulas, please check out my tutorial on subscript and superscript numbers in Google Sheets. You will find different options there.

Conclusion

Earlier, it was impossible to insert an Excel table with borders in Gmail without going through Google Sheets or another supported third-party application.

The previous method was to first copy and paste the Excel table into Google Sheets, and then from Google Sheets into Gmail.

Now, this is no longer necessary, as I was able to insert an Excel table with borders directly into Gmail using Excel 365. However, if you have any problems, you can still follow the previous method of going through Google Sheets, or create the table in Google Sheets and then copy and paste it into Gmail.