Tips for Awesome Excel Printing

ByRoy O. Christensen

Do your Excel files print-out into un-formatted pages that require rework and
are unsightly?

Do your clients and co-workers cringe when you send an Excel file that they need to print for analysis or use? For an example of how a print-out that needs rework looks, see the unsightly un-formatted Excel print-out in Figure 1.

Related: Successful Projects Need Effective Communication.

Here is a checklist that you can use to print Excel files with awesome formatting every time.

On the Page Layout tab, select:

  1. Margins > Narrow (or Normal or Wide if you prefer)
  2. Orientation > Portrait or Landscape
  3. Size > Letter (or 11×17 or Legal if you prefer)
  4. (After selecting cells to print) Print Area > Set Print Area
  5. Width > 1-Page (and/or, Height 1-Page, if you prefer)

Then, on the Page Setup tab, select:

  1. Margins > Center on Page Horizontally (and/or Vertically, if you prefer)

For an example of how this looks, see the awesome formatted Excel print-out in Figure 2. I trust that this information will be useful for you and your colleagues, to save paper and time.

Here are a couple more bonus tips.  

  • On the Page Setup tab, select Header/Footer > Custom Header and/or Custom Footer to input a title, page number, file path, company logo, your name, or other details
  • Print or save to PDF if that format may be preferred and remember to select “Print Entire Workbook” if there is more than one Tab

Note

This article was originally published on LinkedIn 1-May-18
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/tips-awesome-excel-printing-roy-o-christensen-ret/.

About the Author

Roy O. Christensen is a Welding Engineering Technologist who has over 35 years’ experience with O&G, pipeline, and other projects. He has authored countless instructions, manuals, plans, proposals, reports, specifications, and other documents that continue to drive success for many projects. He is the founder of the KT Project that saves organizations significant money and time, by providing key resources to leverage expert knowledge transfer for successful project execution.

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Figures

  1. Unsightly Un-formatted Excel Print-out. Roy O. Christensen
  2. Awesome Formatted Excel Print-out. Roy O. Christensen