Printing a worksheet isn’t simply a matter of giving the Print command. A worksheet is a vast piece of computerized sprawl. Most worksheets don’t fit neatly on a single page. If you simply click the Print button to print your worksheet, you wind up with page breaks in unexpected places, both on the right side of the page and the bottom. Read on to discover how to print a worksheet so that the people you hand it to can read and understand it easily.

Making a worksheet fit on the page

Unless you tell it otherwise, Excel prints everything from cell A1 to the last cell with data in it in the southeast corner of the worksheet. Usually, it isn’t necessary to print all those cells because some of them are blank. And printing an entire worksheet often means breaking the page up in all kinds of awkward places. To keep that from happening, here are some techniques for making a worksheet fit tidily on one or two pages. As you experiment with the techniques described here, click the Print Preview button (or Shift+click the Print button) from time to time to see what your worksheet will look like when it’s printed.

Printing part of a worksheet

To print part of a worksheet, select the data you want to print and choose File -> Print Area -> Set Print Area. This command tells Excel to print only the cells you selected. On the worksheet, a dotted line appears around cells in the print area. To remove the dotted lines from your worksheet, choose File -> Print Area -> Clear Print Area.

Adjusting the page breaks

Reading a worksheet is extremely difficult when it’s broken awkwardly across pages. To decide for yourself where page breaks occur, choose View -> Page Break Preview. Here’s everything a body needs to know about page breaks:

 -  Changing break positions: In Page Break view, drag a dashed line to adjust the position of a page break. After you drag a dashed line, it ceases being a default page break and becomes a manual page break. Manual page breaks are marked by solid lines, not dashed lines. You can drag them, too. Excel shrinks the numbers and letters on your worksheet if you try to squeeze too much data on a worksheet by dragging a page break.

 -  Introducing a page break: Select the cell directly below where you want the horizontal break to occur, and directly to the right of where you want the vertical break to be, and choose Insert -> Page Break. Drag a page break to adjust its position.

 -  Removing page breaks: Select a cell directly below or directly to the right of the page break and choose Insert -> Remove Page Break. To remove all the page breaks, click the Select All button (or press Ctrl+A) and choose Insert -> Reset All Page Breaks. Choose View -> Normal to return to Normal view after you’re done fooling with page breaks. In Normal view, manual page breaks are marked by a dotted line. (If you don’t care to see these dotted lines on your worksheet, choose Tools -> Options, select the View tab in the Options dialog box, and deselect the Page Breaks check box.) As the next section explains, you can use the Fit To option to scale data and make it small enough to fit on a page. However, the Fit To option and manual page breaks don’t get along. Excel cancels manual page breaks if you select the Fit To option.

Scaling data to make it smaller

To scale the number and letters in the worksheet and make them a bit smaller, choose File -> Page Setup. You see the Page Setup dialog box. On the Page tab, select the Fit To option button. Excel shrinks the data as much as necessary to make it fit on one page. The Fit To option is excellent for shrinking a worksheet that’s just a little too big. Click the Print Preview button in the Page Setup dialog box to look at the Preview screen and see whether shrinking your worksheet this way is a help.

Printing a landscape worksheet

If your worksheet is too wide to fit on one page, try turning the page on its side and printing in landscape mode. Choose File -> Page Setup and, on the Page tab of the page Setup dialog box, select the Landscape option button.

Adjusting the margins

Another way to stuff all the data onto one page is to narrow the margins. Use either of these techniques to adjust the size of the margins:

 -  Choose File -> Page Setup and, on the Margins tab of the Page Setup dialog box, change the size of the margins.

 -  Click the Print Preview button (or choose File -> Print Preview) to switch to the Print Preview window. From there, you can drag the margin lines to adjust the size of margins (margin lines are the outermost lines). If you don’t see the margin lines, click the Margins button.

Making a worksheet more presentable

Before you print a worksheet, visit the Page Setup dialog box and see what you can do to make your worksheet easier for others to read and understand. To open the Page Setup dialog box, choose File -> Page Setup or click the Setup button in the Print Preview window. Here are your options:

 -  Including page numbers on worksheets: On the Page tab of the Page Setup dialog box, enter 1 in the First Page Number text box. Then, on the Header/Footer tab, choose a Header or Footer option that includes a page number (for example, Page 1 of ?).

 -  Putting headers and footers on pages: On the Header/Footer tab of the Page Setup dialog box, choose options from the Header and Footer dropdown lists. You’ll find options for listing the file name, page numbers, the date, and your name.

 -  Centering worksheet data on the page: On the Margins tab, choose Horizontally or Vertically to center the worksheet relative to the top or bottom or sides of the page. You can select both check boxes. The preview screen shows what your choices mean in real terms.

 -  Printing gridlines, column letters, and row numbers: By default, the gridlines, column letters, and row numbers you know and love in a worksheet aren’t printed, but you can print them by selecting the Gridlines and Row and Column Headings check boxes in the Sheet tab of the Page Setup dialog box.

Repeating row labels and column names on each page

If your worksheet is a big one that stretches beyond one page, you owe it to the people who will view your worksheet to repeat row labels and column names from page to page. Without the row labels and column names, no one can tell what the data in the worksheet means. Follow these steps to repeat row labels and column headings from page to page:

1. Choose File -> Page Setup. You see the Page Setup dialog box.

2. Select the Sheet tab.

3. Select the Row and Column Headings check box.

4. To repeat rows, click the Return to Worksheet button next to the Rows to Repeat at Top text box; to repeat columns, click the Return to Worksheet button next to the Columns to Repeat at Left text box. The dialog box shrinks so that you can get a better look at your worksheet.

5. Select the row or column with the labels or names you need. You can select more than one row or column, as long as they’re next to each other.

6. Click the Return to Dialog Box button to enlarge the dialog box and see it again. The text box now lists a cell range address.

7. Repeat Steps 4 through 6 to select column names or row labels.

8. Click OK to close the Page Setup dialog box. Click the Print Preview button to make sure that row labels and column names are indeed repeating from page to page. To remove row labels and column names, return to the Sheet tab of the Page Setup dialog box and delete the cell references in the Rows to Repeat at Top text box and the Columns to Repeat at Left text box. You can also press Ctrl+F3 and delete Print_Titles in the Define Name dialog box.