Excel provides a wide-ranging utility to its customers. Sometimes your work demands a specific page layout thus you cannot proceed with default settings. In such situations, you may want to change margins in your Excel spreadsheet. So today we will learn how to change margins in Excel.
What is Margin in Excel?
Margin is the free or empty space of a sheet or paper that does not contain any writing. This margin indicates where to write anything inside a sheet.
Similar to physical paper or sheet, any Excel worksheet also contains margins. Margins are not usually visible in a worksheet. But when we go to the print section, margins can be realized by comparing the spaces.
Which are Default Margins in Excel?
We already know that Excel contains margins. Excel has three built-in margins set up. Those are Normal, Wide, and Narrow. According to your requirements, select any of the margins. Each margin has its own measurement for spacing.
You can set default margins from the Page Layout tab.
How to Change Margins in Excel: 2 Methods
There are two types of margins available in Excel. Those are default and custom margins. Look at the below section for how to change margins in Excel. We will use the following dataset in this article to discuss this matter.
Here, we have used the Microsoft Excel 365 version; you may use any other version according to your convenience.
1. How to Change Margins in Excel: Default Margins
In this section, we will show how to change the default margins in Excel. We will show two ways for this.
1.1 Using Print Preview Option from File Tab
In this section, we will change margins in Excel into narrow, which is a default margin. We will do this using the File tab.
📌 Steps:
- Follow File >> Print >> Normal Margins.
- From the Normal Margins section, we get a list of all the default margin options. Those are mentioned previously.
- In this example, we choose the Narrow option from the list.
- Look at the print preview section.
The margin section is narrow here.
Read More: How to Add Margin in Excel
1.2 Using Page Layout Tab
In this section, we will use the Page Layout tab to change the default margins.
📌 Steps:
- Choose Margins from the Page Layout We are presented with the same list of options.
- Select the Wide option.
- Now, press Ctrl+P and see the print preview.
We can see the margin has been changed with a wide space.
Read More: How to Change Page Margins to Wide in Excel
2. How to Change Margins in Excel: Custom Margins
Previously, we showed how to change the default options for margins in Excel. Now, we will discuss the process of changing into custom margins. See the section below for that.
2.1 Change Margin Using Custom Margins or Page Setup Options
Here, we will customize the margins in Excel using the Custom Margins or Page Setup feature.
📌 Steps:
- Follow Page Layout >> Margins >> Custom Margins.
- The Page Setup window appears.
- Go to the Margins tab.
- Now, customize the margin parameters shown in the image marked as 2.
- Finally, click on the Print Preview button.
- Look at the print preview.
We can see the margins have been changed based on the inputted customized values.
- We can also avail Page Setup feature from the Page Layout tab.
- Follow Page Layout >> right bottom arrow.
- We can also avail of this from the File tab.
- Follow File >> Print >> Page Setup.
2.2 Change Margins by Dragging in Print Preview Window
We can customize margins in Excel by dragging the margin levels. This is a manual process, and it is difficult to fix margin parameters.
📌 Steps:
- Go to File >> Print >> Print Preview.
- Click on the Show Margins option from the right-bottom section.
Margins are showing in the print preview.
- Now, drag the margin parameters in the print preview.
We can see the margin has been changed. Through this process, we can also show margins in the print area that have disappeared.
How to Remove Page Margins
We can remove page margins from the Excel worksheet and due to this margins will show only in the print preview.
📌 Steps:
- Follow the command: File >> Options >> Advanced >> untick Show page breaks.
- Finally, press the OKÂ button.
- Look at the worksheet.
No margin is showing now.
How to Change Cell Margins
In this section, we will show how to change cell margins in Excel. We can shift data leftward and rightward.
📌 Steps:
- Select range B5:B14 >> Increase Indent from Alignment group.
- Look at the worksheet.
We can see the data of the selected cells are right-shifted. Similarly, we can also left-shift data.
How to Set Page Orientation in Excel
In this section, we will set up the orientation of a page in Excel that will reflect on the print preview. By default, Excel shows Portrait orientation. Now, we will set this into Landscape.
📌 Steps:
- Go to the Page Layout >> Orientation >> Landscape.
We can also see the worksheet is set up into Portrait.
- Look at the dataset.
The worksheet is turned into landscape mode.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. How to change the margins for all the sheets in Excel?
Ans: We can change the margins of multiple or all sheets in Excel easily. First, select the desired sheets using the Ctrl or Shift button and then follow any of the methods explained in this article.
2. How do I adjust the header and footer margins in Excel?
Ans: Yes, we can adjust the header and footer margins in Excel. We can do this using the custom margin feature.
3. Can I set different margins for different parts of a worksheet in Excel?
Ans: No, you can not set different margins for different parts of a worksheet. The margin style or parameter for the entire sheet is fixed. You can change the margin style for different sheets of a workbook.
4. How do I fix Excel margins that do not fit to a page?
Ans: We can fix margins in Excel that do not fit to a page using the Page Setup feature.
- Go to the Page Setup window shown previously.
- From the Page tab, click on the Fit to option and insert any number.
- Finally, click on OK.
5. How to fix if margins have disappeared in Excel?
Ans:Â If margins have disappeared from the print preview in Excel, we can solve that problem easily. We can solve that from the File tab. You need to select Show Margin.
Download Practice Workbook
Download this practice workbook to exercise while you are reading this article.
Conclusion
In this article, we described how to change margins in Excel in multiple ways. We also showed how to set page orientation and change cell margins. I hope this will satisfy your needs. We showed the way when the margin disappears from the print preview. Feel free to give your suggestions in the comment box.
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- How to Apply Margin Setting in Excel
- Perform Commands to Center the Selected Worksheets in Excel
- How to Remove Print Margins in Excel
- [Fixed] Excel Margins Not Printing Correctly
- [Fixed!] Excel Margins Disappeared
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