Ignoring borders when using conditional formatting

Is there any way to set conditional formatting styles so that they simply ignore any and all borders (and/or lack of them) associated with a cell? I’m trying to use a two-level conditional format to set nothing more than the background color, and I’m finding that every variation of border encountered appears to require its own style. The way it apparently works is not even close to being a practical solution, since in almost all real-world situations, the borders should typically be independent of the contents of each cell. Surely there is a way to do this more easily?!?

Note: This is a file imported from an Excel xlsx file. If what I’m seeing is not the normal behavior of an ods file built from scratch, that would be good to have confirmed.

Thanks for any input.

Version: 4.1.5.3
Build ID: 1c1366bba2ba2b554cd2ca4d87c06da81c05d24

Windows XP SP3

Hi, it’s totally possible to ignore borders. When you create a style, you normally base if off another style (“Default” by default). It’s in the “Linked with” selection box in the Cell Style dialog box (where you edit the style). Below that is a “Contains” text field that shows what changes your style has from the base style. If you haven’t set any borders for your style, then a cell having that style can have any custom borders you want. The conditional formatting won’t apply borders either if the style it applies doesn’t contain any border values.

Is it possible to apply the top border and to leave all other borders as they are?

Hi, I can’t get this to work. Every style ultimately inherits from Default, and Default explicitly specifies “no borders”. Because of this, conditional formatting always removes existing borders that are set with direct formatting. A solution would be to remove the “no borders” specification from Default, but I don’t know how to do that. Another solution could be to create a new Default style that doesn’t specify borders, but I don’t know how to create a style that does not inherit from something.