Troubleshoot printing

Check your printer setup in Windows    Printing from your computer is primarily controlled by settings in Windows. Determine whether your printer setup in Windows is correct by using the Windows Print Troubleshooter.

1. On the Windows Start menu, click Help.

2. Click Contents, and click Files and Printers.

3. Click Printing, and then follow the instructions in the Troubleshooting topic.

Check the Microsoft Excel printer settings    If the Windows printer setup looks correct, check the Excel printer settings to make sure that the selected printer matches the printer you're using.

On the File menu, click Print, and then click the name of the printer you want in the Name box under Printer.

Check whether a print area is defined    If the worksheet contains a print area, Excel prints only the print area. To determine whether your worksheet contains a print area, click Page Break Preview on the View menu. The area of the worksheet that appears with a white background is the area that is printed.

• Define a print area

Excel formats empty cells out to the bottom row or last column if you select an entire row or column (click the row number or column letter) before applying formatting. Excel then stores the formatting information for all of the otherwise empty cells and the file gets very large.

To fix this problem, do one of the following:

• If you don't want to start a new worksheet, press F5, click Special in the Go to dialog box, and then click Last cell. Delete all the rows up to your actual data and save the workbook.
• Insert a blank worksheet. On the worksheet you want to print, select only the cells you want to print and copy them to the new blank worksheet.

You can choose from several headers and footers or create your own. Headers and footers cannot contain graphics or links to specific cells.

Use black and white only    The text in headers and footers always prints in black. You cannot apply color to the text in headers or footers, even if you have a color printer.

Use print titles to repeat graphics and linked information    If you want to repeat graphics or linked information at the top of every page, use print titles instead of a header. For example, to print a company logo and address at the top of every page:

1. Place the logo and address information in the first few rows of the worksheet.

2. On the File menu, click Page Setup, click the Sheet tab, and then enter the rows that contain the logo and address in the Rows to repeat at top box.

   If you're printing a wide worksheet on multiple pages, be sure to copy the repeating information to additional rows or columns as needed.

Use two ampersand (&) characters to print an ampersand    Microsoft Excel uses the ampersand to initiate codes for special formatting in the headers and footers. Therefore, to enter an ampersand in the header or footer, you must enter &&. For example, to include "Subcontractors & Services" in a header, enter Subcontractors && Services.

Use the existing left and right margins    The left and right header and footer margins are three-quarters (.75) of an inch, regardless of the left and right margins on the page. You can simulate wider margins on a single line header or footer by typing spaces before the text in the Left section edit box and after the text in the Right section edit box. (To locate these edit boxes, click Custom Header or Custom Footer in the Page Setup dialog box.) The spaces you type in the Right section edit box won't appear in the edit box, but will appear in the printed worksheet.

Adjust the space for the header and footer    You can adjust the distance between the top or bottom of the page and the header or footer. You can also change the distance between the data printed on a page and the header or footer. Click Print Preview , click the Margins button, and drag the margin handles to adjust the spacing.

Margin sizing handles

Column sizing handles

You can prevent columns or rows from spilling over the edge of a page by shrinking the sheet so that it is one page wide or tall.

For chart sheets, set the print size    If the chart is on a chart sheet, you can scale it when you print it.

1. Activate the chart sheet, click Page Setup on the File menu, and then click the Chart tab.

2. Under Printed chart size, click the scaling option you want.

   If you click Custom, the chart will be printed at the size you make it when you drag its selection handles.

For embedded charts, drag to resize    If the chart is an embedded chart on a worksheet, resize the chart by clicking it and then dragging its selection handles.

To print charts together on a page, embed them    You cannot print multiple chart sheets on a single page. To print two or more charts on a page, create embedded charts, and then resize them to fit on a single page. You can use the Page Break Preview command on the View menu to examine the location of the charts in the print area.

Excel prints repeating row and column labels only on the pages that include the labeled rows or columns. For example, if you select cells A1:A5 as repeating row labels, Excel does not print these labels on pages that contain only rows below row 5. If you select cells A1:E1 as repeating column labels, Excel does not print these labels on pages that contain only columns to the right of column E. To have Excel print labels on the additional pages, copy the labels to the additional rows or columns.

Background patterns that are added to worksheets by using the Background command on the Format menu are not printed. However, graphics added to a worksheet by using the Picture command on the Insert menu are printed, as are cells with patterns or shading that are added by using the Cells command on the Format menu.

If your workbook is set up so that Excel fits your printed work on a specific number of pages, Excel ignores the manual page breaks you've set and reduces the size of the printed worksheet. (To see whether this is the case, click Page Setup on the File menu, click the Page tab, and check the Fit to option under Scaling.)

Use Adjust To instead of Fit To    To fit the worksheet to the specified number of pages and use the manual page breaks you inserted, click Page Setup on the File menu, click the Page tab, and then click Adjust to.

Set each page as a separate print range    If Adjust to doesn't produce the results you want, you can set a print area with each page selected as a separate range. Excel prints nonadjacent ranges in a print area on separate pages.

1. Insert a blank row or column in each location where you want a manual page break.
2. Select the range you want to include as the entire first page, omitting the blank row or column.
3. Hold down CTRL and select the range for the second page, omitting the blank rows or columns. Continue until you've selected all pages that you want to print.
4. On the File menu, point to Print Area, and then click Set Print Area.
5. On the File menu, click Page Setup, click the Page tab, click Fit to, and enter the number of pages you want.

Column widths, row heights, page margins, and page breaks determine the number of columns and rows that print on a page.

Make margins smaller    If some columns or rows print on the next page, try decreasing the size of the Top, Bottom, Left, and Right margins.

Adjust page breaks    You can move page breaks before you print your document. On the View menu, click Page Break Preview. Excel displays manual page breaks as thick blue lines; automatic page breaks appear as dashed lines. You can move page breaks by dragging them left, right, up, or down.

If a column prints on the wrong page— for example, on the second page instead of the first page— drag the page break that is to the left of the column one column to the right. If a row prints on the page that follows the page where you want it to print, drag the page break that is above the row to a position below the row. Excel automatically scales the worksheet to fit the columns and rows to the page.

Make the sheet print one page wide    If you want the worksheet to be only one page wide, regardless of the number of pages, you can restrict it to the width of a single page.

Change the paper orientation    If you need a few more columns to print on the same page, change the orientation to landscape.

If a print area contains nonadjacent areas of a worksheet, Excel prints each area on a separate page by default. However, you can specify that separate parts of a worksheet print on the same page by using one of the following methods.