Often, the entire purpose of using Excel is to create printed output, such as a report. Excel includes tools to help make printing on your device as easy as possible. Learn how to make Excel work for various printing projects and how to resolve issues you may encounter along the way with the following articles.
Tips, Tricks, and Answers
The following articles are available for the 'Printing' topic. Click the article''s title (shown in bold) to see the associated article.
Adding Page Borders to a Printout
Need a full-page border on your Excel printouts? It's not as easy to get one as you might wish. There are a few ways you can get the border of your dreams, however.
Adjusting Comment Printouts
Need to print out comments, but in a way that you control what is included in the printout? Here's a way you can extract the comments, place them in their own worksheet, and then format the printout to appear as you want.
Automatically Printing a Range
If you want to automatically print a particular area of your worksheet at a specific time of day, you'll love this tip. With the use of two small macros, you can get just the automatic output you need.
Changing Orientations within a Single Printout
Excel allows you to print out information in either portrait or landscape orientation, but what if you need both types of orientation in a single workbook? It's easier than you might think!
When you print multiple copies of worksheets that require more than one page each, you'll probably want those copies printed as sets. By turning on collation, you can direct Excel to print the sets that you need.
If you need to make what Excel prints be based upon conditions in a worksheet, you'll love the information in this tip. There are a variety of ways you can approach the task and get just what you need.
Defining a Custom Paper Size
Need to print your worksheet on a non-standard paper size? Excel is rather limited in printing to such papers, and here is why.
Don't want your worksheets to be printed out? You can make it a bit harder to get a printout by applying the techniques in this tip.
Fitting Your Printout on a Page
Tired of wasting paper when you print a worksheet? You can scale Excel's output so that it fits only the number of pages you want to use.
Hiding a Hyperlink on a Printout
Hyperlinks can be real handy in a workbook, but you may not always want them visible when you send the workbook to the printer. Here are a variety of ways you can hide a hyperlink so it doesn't clutter up your printout.
Hiding Errors on Printouts
If there are error values in a worksheet, you may not want those error values to appear on a printout. Excel actually allows you to specify how those error values are handled.
Have you ever wanted to do a simple printout, only to find that Excel spit out dozens of pages, and most of them were blank? It's happened to all of us; here is why the problem happens and what you can do about it.
Don't want your form controls to print out with your worksheet? Here's how to make sure that Excel excludes them from the printed page.
Out of Kilter Borders
Borders not printing properly? It could be any one of a number of reasons causing the problem. This tip provides some guidance on what you can do to correct the situation.
Want to prevent your worksheet from being printed? You may be out of luck, as a determined person may be able to find a way to do what you don't want.
Printing a Draft of a Worksheet
Want to print out the fastest possible copy of your worksheet? You do so by printing a draft, discussed in this tip.
Printing a Number of Different Pages
If you don't need to print an entire workbook, it can be confusing to figure out how to print just certain pages. This tip explains your options and shows you how to get just what you want.
Printing a Portion of a Worksheet
Need to print a portion of a worksheet, but don't want to waste paper by printing the whole thing? It's easy to print just the selection you make by following these steps.
Printing a Range of Pages
If your worksheet, when printed, requires more than a single page to print, you may want to only print a range of the possible pages. Here's how to specify exactly which pages you want printed.
Printing a Short Selection
Need to print just a portion of a worksheet? It's easy to do if you follow the steps in this tip.
Printing a Worksheet List
Want a list of all the worksheets in your workbook? Here's a short, handy macro that will place all the worksheet names into a single worksheet where you can work with them.
Printing All or Nothing
Want to make sure that when you worksheet is printed that everything in the workbook is really printed? You can accomplish this with an easy macro.
Printing an Entire Workbook by Default
Need to print an entire workbook? It's as easy as adding a single line of code to your macros.
Printing Based on Cell Contents
Would you like to have a worksheet automatically printed when a particular cell contains a specified value? You can achieve this nifty task by using a macro to handle the printing.
Comments can be a boon when you want to annotate your worksheets. If you want, you can instruct Excel to print the comments right along with the worksheet itself. Here's how to instruct Excel to include them.
Printing Limited Pages from a Range of Worksheets
Need to print just a few pages from a group of worksheets? The easiest way to handle the task may be through a macro, as described in this tip.
Printing More Than One Copy
Need to print more than a single copy of a worksheet? You can do it easily by using the controls in the Print dialog box.
Printing Multiple Pages On a Piece of Paper
If you want to save paper on a printout, you might consider printing multiple pages on a single piece of paper. This can be done by using the capabilities of your printer, as described in this tip.
Printing Multiple Worksheets on a Single Page
Got a bunch of worksheets and you want to save paper by printing multiple worksheets on a single piece of paper? There are several ways to approach the issue, and the one you choose will depend (to a degree) on the characteristics of the data you need to print.
Printing Odd or Even Pages
When you print a worksheet, Excel normally prints all the pages or a consecutive series of pages that you specify. If you wan to print only odd or even pages, you may be out of luck unless you successfully try one of the techniques in this tip.
Printing Only Non-Blank Worksheets
If you have a workbook containing many worksheets, you might want to print only those worksheets that have some sort of "flag" set, such as a value in a particular cell. This can be done relatively easily by using a macro to do the printing, as discussed in this tip.
Printing Only Selected Pages
When you print a worksheet, you don't need to print the whole thing. You can print only the pages you want. Here's how to do it.
Printing Row Numbers
On-screen Excel displays row numbers that help you easily see what is in each row. If you want to print these row numbers, you will need to use a workaround, as they can't be printed by themselves.
Printing Rows Conditionally
Need to only print out certain rows from your data? It's easy to do if you apply the filtering or sorting techniques presented in this tip.
Printing Selected Worksheets
When you accumulate quite a few workbooks in folder, you might need to print out selected worksheets from all of the workbooks. Here's a macro that will load each workbook and print the desired worksheets.
Printing to a Disk File
When printing a worksheet, there may be times when you want to send the printer output to a disk file instead of to the printer. This tip describes one such scenario and illustrates how to create the needed disk file. (As well as what to do with the file once you have it.)
Printing without Opening
Want to print one ore more workbooks without the need of actually opening the file? It's easy to do when you rely on Windows instead of on Excel.
Printing Workbook Properties
Want to create a printed record of the properties associated with a workbook? There is no easy way to do it in Excel. Here's a macro, however, that you can use to create a worksheet that contains all your workbook properties.
Printout Doesn't Match Display for Some Cells
Have you ever noticed that when you print something, there are times that what is printed doesn't exactly match what you see on the screen. This can be a problem for accurately formatting worksheets, and the cause is rooted in the way that Excel displays information.
Protecting Print Settings
Need to have your print settings always be a certain way? Tired of resetting the settings after others use the workbook or your system? Here's how you can make sure that the printer settings are always just as you want.
Repeating Rows at the Bottom of a Page
Excel allows you to repeat rows at the top of every page of a printout. If you want to repeat rows at the bottom of every page, there is no easy way to perform the task, but there are some workarounds.
Repeating Rows on a Printout Except On the Last Page
When setting up a worksheet for printing, you can specify that Excel repeat some of your rows at the top of each page printed. If you want to have the repeating occur on every page except the last, then you will need to use a macro to do the printing.
Selecting a Paper Size
Excel can print your worksheet on just about any paper size you can imagine. How you select the paper size you want used depends on your printer's capabilities and what Windows allows you to do.
Selecting a Paper Source
When you print a worksheet, you may want to specify that the printout be done on a particular paper tray in a particular printer. This tip will help you figure out how to do that with your printer.
Setting Default Print Margins
Don't like the print margins that Excel uses by default? You can change the default by changing the workbook on which Excel bases the new workbooks you create.
Setting Print Quality
When printing information in a workbook, you may want to take advantage of the different print quality settings available in your printer. Excel tries to make this print specification easy; just follow these steps.
Setting Print Ranges for Multiple Worksheets
Need the same print range set for different worksheets in the same workbook? It can't be done in one step manually, but you can use a macro to make the print ranges the same.
Setting Print Titles
Excel allows you to specify certain rows or columns that will be repeated on the pages of a printout. Here's how to set those titles so Excel knows what to do with them.
Setting Up Your Printer
Need your printed output to look its best? You may need to change the settings used by your printer, then. Here's how to get to those settings.
Showing Filter Criteria on a Printout
When you print out a filtered worksheet, you may want some sort of printed record as to what filtering was applied to the worksheet. Here's a couple of ways you can get that printed record.
Specifying a Paper Tray in a Macro
If you are using a macro to create your printed Excel output, you may need a way to specify that paper should come from a specific printer tray. That is not as easy as it may first seem. Here's a discussion on the options you have.
Specifying a Print Tray for a Worksheet
If you need to modify where a worksheet is printed (meaning, which paper tray it should use), Excel doesn't provide a lot of options. Here's a description of one approach that may work for you, however.
Specifying an Order for Page Printing
When the data on a worksheet occupies more than one printed page, Excel can easily determine where the first page of data is located, at the top-left of the worksheet. Beyond that, however, the program allows you to specify whether the next page is to the right or below this first page.
Specifying Print Quantity in a Cell
When you print a worksheet, you can specify in the Print dialog box how many copies you want printed. If you want the print quantity to be based on the value entered in a cell, instead, then you'll need to use one of the macro approaches described in this tip.
Speeding Up Printing
Changing a couple of the print settings in Excel can speed up the printing of your worksheets. This tip examines those settings.
Using Less Paper on Printouts
If a worksheet contains nothing but a bunch of values in column A, you may be loathe to print the worksheet and "waste" a bunch of paper. There are a few ways you can better utilize the paper, as discussed in this tip.
Using Multiple Print Settings
Do you have a worksheet from which you need to print only portions of the data available? There are two ways you can control what gets printedâ€"by using a macro or by using custom views.
Using Print Preview
The Print Preview feature can be a great way to see how something will look on paper without actually using any paper. This tip discusses how to use Print Preview and the tools that it offers to you.
Working With Multiple Printers
If you have multiple printers accessible to your computer, you may need a way to quickly print your worksheet on a specific printer. This is an easy task for a macro, as described in this tip.