Adjusting print settings, margins and sheet choices are all fantastic methods to avoid issues when printing an Excel spreadsheet. Find out how in this guide.
You’ve simply sent out an Excel spreadsheet to your printer, but when you check it, you find that the spreadsheet didn’t print right. Maybe it printed in portrait mode when it must’ve printed landscape. Maybe a particular section of your spreadsheet never printed, or the spreadsheet took too many pages to print.
Whatever failed, you can prevent lots of printing problems in Excel by following specific ideas– such as tweaking the margins, setting the print location, scaling the sheet to print and selecting the ideal sheet choices.
Dive to:
What you need to print from Excel
For these actions, I’m using Microsoft Excel as part of a Microsoft 365 membership, however the majority of the guidance here applies to the past couple of variations of Excel as well.
How to examine the orientation before printing Excel spreadsheets
This might appear obvious, however inspect the orientation prior to you print. That normally– but not constantly– means landscape mode. To inspect this:
- Select the tab for Page Design, and click the icon for Orientation (Figure A).
Figure A
Inspect the orientation prior to your print. Image: Lance Whitney/TechRepublic Look at your page margins.

SEE: Explore this side-by-side contrast of Google Workspace vs. Microsoft 365.
To do this:
- From the Page Design Ribbon, click the Print Location icon, and select Clear Print Area.
- Specify the print area by selecting the cells you want to print.
- Then, click the Print Area icon, and select Set Print Location (Figure C).
Figure C
You can constantly clear and then reset the print location. Image: Lance Whitney/TechRepublic SEE: 3 Ways to Reduce 0 in Excel How to set a page break prior to printing
Excel spreadsheets If your spreadsheet contains a lot of rows or columns, it might break at an unsuitable place when you print it. To fix that, you can manually set a page break. To set a horizontal page break:
Select the row where you want the printed
- page to break. To set a vertical page break,
- pick a whole column. Then from the Page Design Ribbon, click the
- Breaks icon, and select Insert Page Break( Figure D). Figure D By hand inserting page breaks can avoid printing problems. Image: Lance Whitney/TechRepublic To get rid of the break, pick the exact same row or column, click the Breaks icon, and select Remove Page Break. If you’ve produced several page breaks that you want to eliminate, pick the choice to Reset All Page Breaks(Figure E). Figure E Remove any page breaks you do not require. Image: Lance Whitney/TechRepublic SEE: Learn how to parse information in Microsoft Excel. How to check preview before printing Excel spreadsheets Now might be a great time to see how
your spreadsheet will look when printed. Press Ctrl+F2 to delve into Print mode, where you can preview the spreadsheet. You can then bounce from one page
to another. When done, click the left arrow on top to return to
routine view( Figure F). Figure F< img src= "https://www.techrepublic.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/tr-11-22-Figure-F-How-to-print-from-Microsoft-Excel-and-avoid-printing-problems-770x476.jpg" alt ="Click the left arrow at the top to return to regular view.
“width=”770″height=”476″/ > Preview your spreadsheet before you send it to the printer. Image: Lance Whitney/TechRepublic SEE: Benefit from the Name box in Microsoft Excel. How to scale to fit before printing Excel spreadsheets Another way to manage the printing on multi-page spreadsheets is by setting a specific width, height or scale: On the Page Design Ribbon , click the dropdown box beside Width.
From here, you can set a specific number of pages to print across. For
example, if you wish to squeeze a large two-page spreadsheet onto one printed page, choose the choice
- for 1 page. Click the dropdown box next to Height. If you wish to squeeze a long
- two-page spreadsheet onto one printed page, select the option for 1 page. To shrink your spreadsheet to a certain portion, both in width and height, click the down arrow beside Scale
- , or type a particular number, such as 75%(Figure G). Figure G You can scale your spreadsheet in both width and height. Image: Lance Whitney/TechRepublic SEE: Explore these Excel ideas every user must master. How to set innovative options prior to printing Excel spreadsheets You can tweak your printed pages further by diving into the complete Page Setup dialog box. To arrive, click the little square in the lower right corner of the Page
Setup area of the Page Design Ribbon. At the tab for Page, you can
change the scaling to a particular portion as you did from the Ribbon, however you
can also set a particular number of pages for both the height and the width(Figure H)
. Figure H You can likewise adjust the scaling by percentage. Image: Lance Whitney/TechRepublic Click the Margins tab to change the margins or center the rows or columns for a small spreadsheet. Click the Header/Footer tab to create, modify or remove a header or footer. Click the Sheet tab to set the print location and print titles. You can choose to print or not print gridlines and other visual marks, and you can select the order of pages to print, either Down Then Over or Over Then Down
- (Figure I). Figure I Review the Page Setup settings before you print.
Image: Lance Whitney/TechRepublic If you’re on the hunt for more Excel-lent ideas, take a look at a fast method
to delete or get rid of blank rows and how to import Excel records into an Outlook Calendar. Source