How to Adjust Print Settings in Excel (8 Suitable Tricks)

Whenever you want to print any documents or any things in Excel, you may adjust the default print settings for getting the best output based on your input. In this article, I’ll show you how you can modify or adjust the print settings in Excel with proper explanation.

Let’s have a look at the following screenshot which depicts an overview of the print settings. For your convenience, I would like to discuss the settings sequentially according to the numbering.

Download Practice Workbook

Dataset for Print Settings.xlsx

8 Quick Tricks to Adjust Print Settings in Excel

Before going to the print settings, let’s be introduced to today’s datasets. Here, we have two working sheets in the workbook. The first sheet contains the Monthly Sales Report: February 2022.

On the other hand, the second working sheet depicts the Employee Information of a certain company.

1. Fixing Print Area

At the outset, we’ll discuss how we can fix the print area. You’ll see there are three options if you click on the drop-down arrow of Print Active Sheets.

1.1. Print Active Sheets

If you want to print the current working sheet of your workbook, just the Print Active Sheets from the drop-down lists.

1.2. Print All Working Sheets of Workbook

But if you need to print all working sheets of your workbook, choose the option of Print Entire Workbook from the drop-down lists.

Here, I have two working sheets in my workbook and I selected the second sheet that’s why the print preview shows page 2 in the above screenshot.

1.3. Print Selected Area

Moreover, you can print selected areas (selected cells) instead of the entire worksheet or workbook.

Look closely at the print preview where you see some cells are available from the dataset to print.

How can you do this?

In such a situation, two things are significant. Firstly, you have to select cells from the worksheet. For example, I selected B2:I16 cells from the first working sheet as depicted in the following picture.

Secondly, you need to pick the Print Selection (as shown in the above screenshot) from the drop-down lists of the Print Active Sheets.

Furthermore, if you want to explore the two ways of printing selected cells, you may visit the How to Print Selected Cells article.

2. Setting Print Range

Using this setting, you may fix the page range before printing. Let’s say you have 3 pages on your workbook, but you wish to print the first two pages. So put 1 & 2 in the blank spaces after the Pages respectively.

Similar Readings

3. Selecting Collated or Uncollated from Print Settings

When you need to print multiple copies(e.g. 5) of the pages, you may utilize the Collated or Uncollated settings.

If you want to print all pages of the entire book the first time, second time…fifth time, you can choose the Collated option. That means this option will print the entire workbook separately

In contrast, you may pick the Uncollated option if you want to print 5 copies of page 1, 5 copies of page 2…in this way.

4. Choosing Orientation of Page

By default, the orientation of the page is Portrait in Excel.

Look at the following picture.

Here, some columns (Sales & Discount) are missing in the print preview. So, the Portrait orientation is not perfect for this print area. But if you select the Landscape Orientation, then no columns will be missing.

All columns are seen in the following picture after changing the page orientation.

Similar Readings

5. Preferring Paper Size

Furthermore, you can prefer the paper size based on your dataset. For example, if you have a larger dataset, you may choose the A3 paper size. And if you want to print in standard paper size, just select the A4 size from the list.

6. Changing Margins

Similarly, you can change the margins option if you need. If you click on the drop-down arrow of Normal Margins, you’ll see three types of margins. Choose the Normal if your print area is standard, otherwise, pick the Narrow if your area is larger.

Related Content: How to Fit to Page and Print in Excel (10 Ways)

7. Adjusting Scaling in the Print Settings

You’ll get 4 scaling options if you click on the drop-down arrow of the No Scaling option.

7.1. Fit Sheet on One Page

Sometimes, you won’t get all print areas on one page by default as there is No Scaling option by default.

But if you choose the Fit Sheet on One Page, you’ll get the following print preview where all columns and rows are seen.

7.2. Fit All Columns on One Page

In the following print preview, you see that 3 columns are missing.

If you need to print all columns on one page, you have to choose the Fit All Columns on One Page.

After selecting the scaling option, you’ll see the following print preview where the 3 missing columns are seen.

7.3. Fit All Rows on One Page

Assuming that you add some extra rows (as illustrated in the following picture) below the cells of the current worksheet.

Now, you see that the newly added rows are missing in the print preview, but you have to print the whole dataset including those newly added rows.

Just select the Fit All Rows on One Page option from the scaling options.

Finally, you’ll get the following print preview where all rows are seen.

Also, you can utilize the paper size, margins, scaling settings to make the excel sheet bigger while printing. See the How to Make Spreadsheets Bigger when Printing article if you feel necessary.

8. Modifying Page Setup Option of Print Settings

Last but not least, we’ll see the Page Setup option from the print setting in Excel right away, click on the Page Setup option under the scaling options.

You’ll see the Page Setup dialog box after clicking on the Page Setup option.

Here, 4 tabs are available in the above dialog box namely Page, Margins, Header/Footer & Sheet. Truly speaking, there is a myriad of options to adjust in the Page Setup dialog box.

8.1. Starting Print from a Custom Number

By default, the First page number is Auto. But if you want to print page 3, just insert 3 instead of Auto.

8.2. Adjusting Custom Margins

In the following picture, the print area is not centered on page.

You may fix the problem.

Just go to the Margins tab and check the box before Horizontally.

So, the print preview will be as follows.

8.3. Removing Header & Footer

Additionally, if you want to remove the header & footer while printing, go to the Header/Footer tab and select (none) for both Header and Footer options.

8.4. Working with the Sheet Tab

Look closely at the following screenshot, there are lots of options to modify if you want.

For example, you can modify the Page order, Printing comments, Cell error, Print Titles & Print Area, and so on depending on your dataset and requirement.

Conclusion

So, these are the ways to modify or adjust print settings in Excel. I firmly believe that the above article will be beneficial for you. Anyway, if you have any queries or suggestions, please share them below in the comments section.