10 Minute Guide to Excel for Windows 95

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- 9 -
Printing Large Worksheets

In this lesson you learn about the many aspects involved in printing a large worksheet.

Selecting a Print Area

You can tell Excel what part of the worksheet you want to print using the Print Area option of the Page Setup dialog box. This option lets you single out an area as a separate page and then print that page. If the area is too large to fit onto one page, Excel will break it into multiple pages. If you do not select a print area, Excel will print either the sheet or the workbook depending on the options set in the Page tab. To select a print area:

1. Open the File menu and choose Page Setup. The Page Setup dialog box appears.

2. Click the Sheet tab to display the Sheet options.

3. Click in the Print Area text box to display the insertion point. Drag the Page Setup dialog box out of the way and drag the mouse pointer over the desired cells (see Lesson 10), as shown in Figure 9.1. You'll see a dashed line border surrounding the selected area and absolute cell references with $ in the Print Area text box. (If you want to type the range, you don't have to include the $ in the cell references. See Lesson 14 for more information about absolute cell references.)

4. Click Print in the Page Setup dialog box to display the Print dialog box. Then click OK to print your worksheet.

Figure 9.1
Selecting a print area.


Panic Button: To Include or Not To Include? To help you determine what shouldn't be part of the print area, be sure not to include the title, subtitle, and column and row headings in the print area. If you do, Excel will print the labels twice.


Panic Button: Remove the Print Area To remove the print area, delete the cell coordinates in the Print Area text box.

Adjusting Page Breaks

When you print a workbook, Excel determines the page breaks based on the paper size and margins and the selected print area. To make the pages look better and break things in logical places, you may want to override the automatic page breaks with your own breaks. However, before you add page breaks, try these options:

If after trying these options you still want to insert page breaks, first determine whether you need to limit the number of columns on a page or the number of rows.

To limit the number of columns:

1. Select a cell that's in the column to the right of the last column you want on the page. For example, if you want Excel to print only columns A through G on the first page, select a cell in column H.

2. Move to row 1 of that column.

3. Open the Insert menu, and choose Page Break. A dashed line appears to the left of the selected column, showing the position of the page break.

To limit the number of rows:

1. Select a cell in row just below the last row you want on the page. For example, if you want Excel to print only rows 1 through 12 on the first page, select a cell in row 13.

2. Move to column A of that row.

3. Open the Insert menu, and choose Page Break. A dashed line appears above the selected row.


Timesaver Tip: One Step Page Breaks You can set the lower right corner of a workbook in one step. Select the cell that is below and to the right of the last cell for the page, and then open the Insert menu, and select Page Break. For example, if you wanted cell G12 to be the last cell on that page, move to cell H13, and set the page break.


Panic Button: Remove a Page Break To remove a page break, move to the cell that you used to set the page break, open the Insert menu, and choose Remove Page Break.

Printing Column and Row Headings

Excel provides a way for you to select labels and titles that are located on the top edge and left side of your large worksheet, and print them on every page of the printout. This option is useful when a worksheet is too wide to print on a single page. The extra columns will be printed on subsequent pages without any descriptive information unless you use the Repeat Rows at Top and Repeat Columns at Left options in the Page Setup dialog box. When you specify the column and row headings, Excel divides the worksheet into sections, showing dashed borders around the column and row headings you want to repeat. Figure 9.2 shows a worksheet after you specify the column and row headings.

To print column and row headings on every page:

1. Open the File menu, and choose Page Setup. The Page Setup dialog box appears.

2. Click the Sheet tab to display the Sheet options.

3. Click in the Rows to Repeat at Top text box to display the insertion point. Then drag the Page Setup dialog box out of the way and drag the mouse pointer over the desired cells (see Lesson 10), as shown in Figure 9.3.

4. Click in the Columns to Repeat at Left text box to display the insertion point. Then drag the dialog box title bar out of the way and drag the mouse pointer over the desired cells (see Lesson 10), as shown in Figure 9.3.

5. Click OK to close the Page Setup dialog box and see the results in your worksheet or click Print to see the Print dialog box and print your worksheet.

Figure 9.2
Repeating column and row headings on every page.


Panic Button: Remove the Rows and Columns You Want to Repeat To remove the rows and columns you want to repeat, delete the cell coordinates in the Rows to Repeat at Top and Columns to Repeat at Left text boxes.

Figure 9.3
Specifying column and row headings with Sheet Options.

Adding Headers and Footers

Excel lets you add headers and footers to print information at the top and bottom of every page of the printout. The information can include any text, page numbers, the current date and time, the workbook file name, and the worksheet tab name. You can choose the headers and footers suggested by Excel, or you can include any text plus special commands to control the appearance of the header or footer. For example, you can apply bold, italic, or underline to the header or footer text (see Lesson 17). You can also left-align, center, or right-align your text in a header or footer (see Lesson 16).

To add headers and footers:

1. Open the File menu and choose Page Setup. The Page Setup dialog box appears.

2. Click the Header/Footer tab to display the Header and Footer options, as shown in Figure 9.4. Notice that by default Excel uses the name of the sheet as the header and Page 1 as the footer.

3. To select a different header, click the drop-down arrow next to the Header text box. You'll see a list of suggested header information. Scroll through the list and click on a header you want. The sample header appears at the top of the Header/Footer tab.

4. To select a different footer, click the drop-down arrow next to the Footer text box. You'll see a list of suggested footer information. Scroll through the list and click on a footer you want. The sample footer appears at the bottom of the Header/Footer tab.

5. Click OK to close the Page Setup dialog box and return to your worksheet or click the Print button to display the Print dialog box. Then click OK to print your worksheet.

Figure 9.4
Adding headers and footers with Header/Footer options.


Panic Button: Don't Want Any Headers or Footers? To remove the header and footer, choose None in the Header and Footer suggestions lists.

Scaling a Worksheet to Fit on a Page

If your worksheet is still too large to print on one page after you change the orientation and margins, you might consider using the Fit To option. This option shrinks the worksheet to fit on the specified number of pages. You can specify the document's width and height. To scale a worksheet to fit on a page:

1. Open the File menu, and choose Page Setup. The Page Setup dialog box appears.

2. Click the Page tab to display the Page options, as shown in Figure 9.5.

3. Enter the number of pages in the Page(s) Wide By and the Tall text boxes.

4. Click OK to close the Page Setup dialog box and return to your worksheet or click the Print button in the Page Setup dialog box to display the Print dialog box. Then click OK to print your worksheet.


Timesaver Tip: Quickly Adjust You can reduce or enlarge the printout using the Adjust To option in the Page tab in the Page Setup dialog box. Some printers will let you reduce or enlarge the printout as it prints. Although 100% is normal size, you can enter the desired reduction or enlargement percentage you want (10% to 400%).

Figure 9.5
Scaling a worksheet to fit on the specified number of pages with Page options.


In this lesson, you learned how to print a large worksheet. In the next lesson, you will learn how to work with ranges.


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