Printing worksheets or workbooks in Excel can be challenging. This article will provide some tips to help Excel users print worksheets or workbooks that look as good on the page as they do on the screen.

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Printing Excel Worksheets & Workbooks

With time and practice, most Excel users learn how to format spreadsheets so that they not only look good but also display information in a manner most suited to analysis. However, printing worksheets or workbooks can pose challenges. Even when you’ve created a workbook that conveys data in an organized, formatted fashion and it appears to be ready to send to the printer, the printed version may come out looking entirely different. This is because Excel spreadsheets weren’t created to fit on a page. Instead, they are intended to be as wide as the data necessitates. 

There’s no need to worry, though. Once you master a few tricks for printing in Excel, you’ll be able to print professional-looking spreadsheets. For those who are new to printing in Excel, here are a few printing options of which you may not be aware:

  • It’s possible to print an entire worksheet or workbook, or to elect to print partial worksheets and workbooks one at a time, or a few at once. 
  • You can also choose to print just an Excel table.
  • Workbooks can be printed to a file instead of a printer. This comes in handy when in instances where the workbook will need to be printed on a different kind of printer than the one that was used to originally print it.

7 Tips for Printing Worksheets & Workbooks in Excel

It may seem straightforward to print an Excel worksheet or workbook. However, one of the biggest challenges facing Excel users who need to print spreadsheets is that they aren’t familiar with all the steps required so that their printed document comes out looking good. The following seven tips provide guidance to help you print professional-looking Excel worksheets and workbooks:

  • Preview before you print. It may seem obvious, but previewing a spreadsheet before it’s printed helps Excel users avoid wasting time or ink on spreadsheets that don’t print as expected. In order to preview an Excel worksheet:
    1. Select the “File” tab in the Excel Ribbon. 
    2. When you choose “Print,” a preview of the spreadsheet appears on the right. By clicking on the “Next Page” icon located on the bottom lefthand side of the preview screen, you can navigate from page to page to see how each page looks.
  • Establish a print area. Before printing, it’s helpful to establish a print area so that superfluous data that was entered in other parts of the worksheet doesn’t appear in the final print version. To specify a print area:
    1. Select the cell or cells you’d like to print.
    2. Choose the “Page Layout” tab located in the Ribbon.
    3. Select “Print Area” from the “Page Setup” group.
    4. When the drop-down menu appears, select “Set Print Area.”

Unless you specify otherwise in print settings, when printing active worksheets, Excel assumes you’d like to print the specified area. 

  • Print only specific cells. One alternative to selecting a print area in Excel is to print only the selected cells. To do so:
    1. Choose the cell or cells you’d like to print.
    2. Select the “File” tab from the Ribbon.
    3. Click on “Print.”
    4. Go to “Settings.”
    5. From the first drop-down menu, click on “Print Selection.”
    6. Click on “Print.”
  • Optimize space. When printing an Excel spreadsheet, you’re limited to the dimensions of the paper on which it will appear. However, there are ways to maximize this allotted space. One option is to change the orientation of the page. While the pre-set orientation is a good option for printing spreadsheets that have more rows than columns, this isn’t always the best way to display data. For example, if you have a spreadsheet that’s shorter and wider, using a landscape page orientation works best. In addition, if your worksheet requires additional room, try changing the margin width. In addition, if you’d like to print a relatively small spreadsheet, the Custom Scaling Options in Excel can be manipulated to fit each row or column onto one printed page.
  • Add page breaks. Similar to how they function in Microsoft Word, page breaks can also be used in Excel to help logically break up worksheets that are longer than a single page. Once a page break is placed in a spreadsheet, the data below the break moves to a different page. This feature is helpful in that it allows Excel users to deliberately decide where they wish to break up data, rather than having this decision made by default settings on this app. 
  • Scale spreadsheets to fit. When tasked with printing a spreadsheet that’s more than a page long, Excel users can also manipulate height, width, or scale. In order to do this:
    1. Go to the “Page Layout” Ribbon.
    2. Select the drop-down box next to Width. Here, you can select the number of pages you’d like to print across. 
      1. If you want to fit a two-page spreadsheet onto just one page to print, choose the “1 page” option. 
      2. Or, if you want to shrink the size of a spreadsheet to be a percentage of its original width and height, say 75%, you can specify a specific percentage, or simply click the down arrow on the side of “Scale” to shrink the dimensions as needed.
  • Printing titles on all pages. When working with large Excel worksheets, it may be helpful for organizational purposes to add the title to all pages. If you’d like to add titles before printing:
    1. Choose the “Page Layout” Ribbon tab.
    2. The “Page Setup” group will then appear. Select “Page Setup.”
    3. Go to “Print Titles” and select “Rows to repeat at top” or “Columns to repeat at left.”
    4. Choose the row or column containing the title you’d like to repeat. 
    5. Click on OK.

The more you practice with the above-mentioned printing options and tips, the easier it will become to create spreadsheets that look equally good on the page and the screen.

Learn More About Excel with Hands-On Classes

Are you looking to learn more about tips for printing Excel worksheets and workbooks? If so, Noble Desktop currently offers a variety of Excel courses in NYC and live online. Classes are available for those who are new to Excel, as well as learners who regularly work with this spreadsheet application and wish to brush up on their skills. In addition, there are also in-person and live online Excel courses available through Noble Desktop or one of its affiliate schools. A variety of course options are offered, ranging in duration from three hours to two days and costing between $229 and $1,099. 

Noble Desktop’s Excel Bootcamp provides a great option for those who want to master core Excel concepts, such as working with VLOOKUP and PivotTables. Students who enroll in this rigorous, 21-hour course can elect to study in person in Manhattan or learn in the live online environment. This small class comes with the option of a free retake and covers a variety of Excel concepts applicable to the business world. 

Those interested in studying close to home can also browse more than 700 in-person Microsoft Office classes in a city near you to find local Excel study options.