How to Make Excel Spreadsheet Bigger When Printing (7 Ways)

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Printing in an efficient way creates a lot of positive impacts on the mother environment and your office balance sheet. So, I always inspire people to print in a smart way. In this article, I will show how to make an Excel spreadsheet bigger when printing large data.

I will be honest with you. Actually, there is no way to do that. You cannot make your Microsoft Excel spreadsheet bigger (unless you want to change the page size). But in this article, I will show some tips and tricks that you can use to print your large data in a smaller space.


Make Excel Spreadsheet Bigger When Printing: 7 Easy Ways

Before going into the main discussion, let me clear one confusion.

Don’t be confused with the mentioned phrase making the spreadsheet bigger. You hardly can make a bigger size spreadsheet just by its rows (total rows: 1048576) and columns (total columns: 16384) numbers. We are just going to show how you can allocate your large data (with a lot of columns) on a smaller page.

You’re seeing an image of a worksheet. This data has 5 columns. So, it is tough to fit all these pages into 1 page.

 How to Make Excel Spreadsheet Bigger When Printing

In the following picture, we can see the page preview dotted lines. We can clearly see that the last two columns will not print if we give the Print command.

How to Make Excel Spreadsheet Bigger When Printing

To make an Excel spreadsheet bigger when printing, you can follow any of the ways described below.


1. Making Page Adjustment

In the first way, we can alter the page size to accommodate all the columns on one page. So it will be easier to print Excel sheet on one page. This method gives the reader the much-needed continuity of the dataset. Let’s walk through the following steps to solve the problem.

Steps:

  • First of all, go to the File tab.
  • Next, select the Print option.
  • Then, select the Letter option from the Settings section.

Making Page Adjustment

  • From the Letter option, select A3.

How to Make Excel Spreadsheet Bigger When Printing

In the Print Preview section, we can see that the entire dataset got adjusted on one page.

How to Make Excel Spreadsheet Bigger When Printing

Now, you can click on Print to print the entire dataset making the spreadsheet bigger when printing.

Read More: How to Print Multiple Sheets in Excel


2. Changing Orientation

The page orientation change is our second method to make Excel spreadsheet bigger when printing. Page orientation can be either in landscape mood or portrait mode. By default, Excel will show your dataset as a portrait mood. However, you can adjust the orientation based on the column and row numbers. Use and print in landscape mode for higher column numbers and portrait mode for higher row numbers.

Steps:

  • Go to the File tab first.
  • Then, select the Print option.
  • Next, select the Portrait Orientation option from the Settings section.

Changing Orientation

  • Now, select Landscape from the Orientation for our dataset, Landscape Orientation gives a proper output. That’s why we chose it.

How to Make Excel Spreadsheet Bigger When Printing

We can see that the entire dataset got adjusted on one page in the Print Preview section.

How to Make Excel Spreadsheet Bigger When Printing

Read More: How to Print Excel Spreadsheet on Multiple Pages


3. Applying Size Feature

We can use the Page Size feature as the 3rd way. Basically, Excel considers the page size for printing as a Letter by default. But, with this paper size, all the columns may not be on one page. So in this way, you can alter the page size to accommodate all the columns on one page. Now, let’s see the steps of this method.

Steps:

  • Firstly, click on the Page Layout tab.
  • Select Size from the Page Layout Then, you can choose according to your demand from the page size options. Here, I have chosen A3 to keep all the columns on one page. You can also A4 sheet size for printing since it is the most popular sheet size ubiquitously.

Applying Size Feature

Now, if you print the entire dataset, you will see that all the columns are on one page. There are no cutting off columns. We can confirm it by watching the Print Preview section.

How to Make Excel Spreadsheet Bigger When Printing

Read More: [Fixed!] Cutting Off Text When Printing in Excel


4. Using Fit Sheet on One Page Option

Another efficient method to solve the problem is by fitting the dataset to one page. By doing this, all the columns and rows will be adjusted automatically. You just need to follow the following steps to execute it.

Steps:

  • Go to the File tab.
  • Then, select the Print option.
  • Next, select the No Scaling option from the Settings section.

Using Fit Sheet on One Page Option

  • Pick Fit Sheet on One Page option from the No Scaling section.

How to Make Excel Spreadsheet Bigger When Printing

In the Print Preview section, we can see that the entire dataset got adjusted on one page.

How to Make Excel Spreadsheet Bigger When Printing

Read More: How to Print Excel Sheet in Full Page


5. Applying Print Area Command

You can use the Print Area command as a method to make an Excel spreadsheet bigger when printing. Now, follow the steps given below.

Steps:

  • As the first step, select the entire area that you want to print. In my case, I have selected cells A1:G26.
  • Next, go to the Page Layout tab.
  • Select Print Area from the Page Layout ribbon.
  • After that, pick the Set Print Area option.

5. Applying Print Area Command

You can cross-match whether the selected area is ready to print or not in the Print Preview section.

How to Make Excel Spreadsheet Bigger When Printing

Read More: [Fixed!] Excel Cutting Off Text When Printing to PDF


6. Using Page Break Preview Option

Another very simple yet effective way is to use the Page Break Preview option. Please follow the steps mentioned below to execute it.

Steps:

  • At first, go to the View tab.
  • Next, select the Page Break Preview option from the View ribbon.

Using Page Break Preview Option

Now, you will see a blue dotted line as the border between the pages.

How to Make Excel Spreadsheet Bigger When Printing

  • Extend the blue dotted line as far as you want to print the area on the first page.

Using Page Break Preview Option

We can see that the Excel spreadsheet got bigger. We can confirm it by watching the Print Preview section.

Using Page Break Preview Option

Thus, we can make the Excel spreadsheet bigger when printing.

Read More: [Fixed!] Cutting Off Columns when Printing


7. Reducing Margins of Page

There is another way we can make the Excel spreadsheet bigger at the time of printing by reducing the margins of the page. Let me warn you that it will not work properly all the time. If the page goes out of its reducible limit, it won’t be able to make the spreadsheet bigger.

Steps:

  • Go to the File tab.
  • Next, select the Print option.
  • Then, select the Normal Margins option from the Settings section.
  • Now, choose the Narrow option to make the spreadsheet bigger.

Reducing Margins of Page

There is no doubt that it will make the Excel spreadsheet bigger. But it keeps confusion if the bigger version will be able to fit the entire dataset or not.


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Conclusion

That’s all for this article. In this article, I have tried to explain 7 easy ways to make an Excel spreadsheet bigger when printing. It will be a matter of great pleasure for me if this article could help any Excel user even a little. For any further queries, comment below. You can visit our site for more articles about using Excel.


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Kawser Ahmed
Kawser Ahmed

Kawser Ahmed is a Microsoft Excel Expert, Udemy Course Instructor, Data Analyst, Finance professional, and Chief Editor of ExcelDemy. He is the founder and CEO of SOFTEKO (a software and content marketing company). He has a B.Sc in Electrical and Electronics Engineering. As a Udemy instructor, he offers 8 acclaimed Excel courses, one selected for Udemy Business. A devoted MS Excel enthusiast, Kawser has contributed over 200 articles and reviewed thousands more. His expertise extends to Data Analysis,... Read Full Bio

1 Comment
  1. The Fit to option maxes out at 100%.

    To fit to one page when you want to increase the size past 100% I wrote this blog post that has macro code to achieve a fit to one page with greater than 100%. I also explained how I created the macro which is also instructive.

    https://a4accounting.com.au/expand-to-fit-to-one-page-in-excel/

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