How to Print an Excel Spreadsheet Worksheet

How to print in Excel

You have to adjust the print setting within the Microsoft Excel program.

Depending on the version of Excel you are using, the setting differ, but generally when setting up the print setting within the Excel program adjust the following settings as needed:

The adjust the following Excel print setting, in the Excel Ribbon Menu, click File and then click Print.

  1. To Adjust the scaling
    1. Select "Fit all columns on one page" (Shrink the printout so that it is one page wide)
    2. Select "Fit sheet one page" (Shrink the printout so that it fits on one page)  This is helpful for the monthly calendar spreadsheet. Note: If the Excel worksheet contains too many cells of data, then the font will be hard to read on the printout because it will be too small since Excel is trying to fit the entire worksheet on a single page that is printed. Excel may not be able to fit the entire worksheet on a single page that is printed and it may print out on more than one page. You can always view before printing the Excel worksheet using the print preview.
  2. Use the print pages from ___ to ___. (to limit printing to only specific pages such as print only pages 1 to 3 or print only pages 9 to 10)
  3. Using landscape (vs portrait) may allow for larger print size.
  4. Using narrow margins may allow for larger print size.
  5. Under Printer, you can choose "Microsoft Print to PDF" to print out the spreadsheet into the digital pdf format as opposed to a paper print out.
  6. For those Excel templates that are not password protected, such as the Excel calendars, you can adjust the cell formatting including font size, width of the columns, and the height of the rows, which can impact the Excel worksheet printout and whether or not you can fit the worksheet on a single page printout.

 

If you want specific rows in an Excel worksheet to be printed out on each printed page: In the Excel Ribbon Menu, click Page Layout, and then click Print Titles and in the window that opens up, click the Sheet tab and in the Rows to Repeat at Top, enter the rows that you want to show at the top of each printed page. For example, enter $1:$4, if you want the first 4 rows in the sheet to be printed on each page. Another example would be to enter $4:$4, which would print row 4 at the top of each printed page.

If you want custom headers or footers to be printed on each page from an Excel worksheet (such as a title and page numbering), in the Excel Ribbon Menu, click Page Layout, and then click Print Titles and in the window that opens up, click the Header/Footer tab.

 

Note: In the Excel checkbook registers, if the freeze panes become unfrozen due to clicking the "Page Layout" view on the lower right corner of Excel window (or by clicking "Page Layout" within the Excel View menu), then you can freeze the panes again (keep rows and columns visible while the rest of the worksheet scrolls) by following the steps below (with the exception of Excel 2007):

a) In the Excel checkbook register, click the Normal icon on the lower right corner of Excel's status bar (or in the Excel menu, click View and then click Normal)
b) In the Excel checkbook register, select cell A5
c) In the Excel menu bar, click View and then click Freeze Panes, and then click Freeze Panes

For Excel 2007, if you click the Page Layout icon on the status bar at the bottom of Excel or located in the View Tab of Excels ribbon as this will cause the Freeze Panes to be turned off on sheets that have them (for example the Registers) and the Freeze Panes can't be turned back on because the sheets are protected. Note, this only impacts certain versions of Excel. In Excel 2007, if you lose the Freeze Panes there are two different options to turn them back on: 

  1. You can close Excel template that you are working on without saving the Freeze Panes that were turned off, but you may loose some work that you did. Or
  2. If Excel template was saved after the Freeze Panes were turned off, use a backup copy that has the Freeze Panes turned on.

Microsoft Excel will give you a message when clicking the Page Layout view stating "Page Layout View is not compatible with Freeze Panes, If you continue, the panes on this sheet will be unfrozen."

 

Options to View Your Data besides Hard Copy Paper Print

There may be times when you want to print the Excel checkbook spreadsheet or print the reports and charts, however typically it will be sufficient to just view the Excel templates on your monitor. The data that you add to the Excel spreadsheet template can be viewed on your monitor when the Excel file is open in the Microsoft Excel program. You can view the transactions in the Registers, Accounts Summary, Reports & Charts, if any. You can also change the zoom level. In Excel, you can change the Zoom level while the Excel file is open. However, changing the Zoom level too small, may cause some data to display as ######.  Just increase the Zoom level if this happens. See the Excel help article titled how to zoom in or out of an Excel worksheet for more specific details. Also, you can save the Excel worksheet as a .pdf file and view it within Adobe reader.

 

Applies to All Excel templates on BuyExcelTemplates.com

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