Office for Mac 2004
Excel 11.5.6
Epson Stylus Color 740

No matter what line style I choose, the output is the same - just a narrow solid line. I want to have some borders print with thicker lines, and some with dashed or dotted lines. Is this an Excel setting, or something with my printer?

(Also posted on Mr. Excel Message Board)

The style changes should be visible immediately, and show up in preview, in addition to the printout. Are you even seeing the changes on the spreadsheet in excel?

Sometimes to change a border you have to remove the border entirely and then re-add it. Try selecting the no borders for the area to clear them all, and then set them again.

No, they look the same on the screen also.

Yeah, did that. Cleared it, changed the line style, saved the file, made new border.

(No response yet on Mr. Excel, but about 40 threads jumped ahead of mine.)

can you upload screen shots of the issue and maybe a copy of a spreadsheet having this problem? have you tried using excel on another machine to see if the problem goes away? try with a new xls and with the xls you are using.

Finally an answer from "Mr. Excel"

In the Format > Cells dialog, Borders tab:
Select the style you want for the current cell. Now click one of the icons showing the position desired, then click OK.

I was selecting the style of line, then OK. Then I was going to the cells where I wanted that style and creating the borders. That didn't work.