Printing with Excel and what I dont get

[Warren Lake]

Ive used Word for most of my stuff and year or so past someone sent me some info on XL. I took that info out and used XL for some other stuff, found the auto add and subtract feature and now use it to do HST and other instead of the mickey mouse calculator.

I have an issue in printing and once past my accountant fixed it. He said I had an older version of XL and that he put it into his version that he knows and sent it back and it printed fine. This computer the XL is in the windows 2007 office package.

When I print this one sheet and I can see it all on the screen I end up getting 9 pages instead of one and no borders. What am I looking for is the setting in the program while I have it on the screen or is it in the printer. I just want to print what I see on the screen my whole spread sheet just about fills the screen and I just want to print what I see on one 8 1/2 x 11 page landscape. for now im doing Screen saves and then priting them and it works., One of the ones i had to print had to be done on two pages and its fine as well.

What should I be looking at?

thanks

[Doug Garson]

When you say XL do you mean Excel? What version? Don't use it much but newer versions of Excel are much more user friendly than the older versions especially when it come to formatting tables and cells and printing. Maybe time to upgrade.

[Warren Lake]

nah im too stubborn what I use works well enough and ive heard enough rants on newer stuff. Its just me not knowing how to work it. Yes Excell and not sure what version but will check into it. I emailed my accountant as originally I used the spread sheet I was sent for something else., Wiped it clean and used it and thought it was very good even if I didnt get it.

Then in one of the older computers it has offices 2007 so it will be whatever version is in that but I will take a look. Yeah says Excell 2007. I looked in Page Layout. Memory was that my accountant had directed me to the tool bar and changed a setting past and it printed fine but he doesnt seem to remember now.

Read a few posts about it and got it to print then increased the size, too large at first now onto one page now. Then no grid and found the gird as well. Printed it landscape and its fitting. Like to make it taller but ill settle for this for now

[Bill Howatt]

You can usually find a huge amount of information about "how to" questions concerning MS Office products like Excel. You have to be careful about the version because how to do X in the current version may not be how it's done in an older version, especially as old as the one you are dealing with. Sometimes how to do it in a different version can point you in the right direction for solving the problem in your version even though the menus are different.

[George Yetka]

When you go to print the first item in settings is print area. You can use this to select what you want to print. IE highlight an area and when you get to this setting select print highlighted area.

Another option is to print only page 1 with the second option in settings by adding 1 in each of those boxes

[Derek Meyer]

You should have an option to fit the sheet you want to print to the page size you are printing to. In the newest version of Excel, it is under Scaling. The default is No Scaling, but there are options to Fit the Sheet to one page, Fit All Rows on one page, or Fit All Colums on one page. Your version should have similar options.

[Jim Becker]

If you don't want to print everything (and in a haphazard way) you need to define your print area. There's a menu entry for that. I have no idea exactly where that would be in a 2007 version because I run Office 365 which is always current, but in my version, it's associated with Page Layout.

[Warren Lake]

thanks on all will save. Spoke to an investment lady and she said there are several ways to do the same. Her employees do it different but get the same results. Next id like to step this up to get colour to make it easier to read. I put pay outs in brackets as accountants told me its a thing and thats good but when i did this spread sheet with brackets then added red for the payouts its just easier to read it right away. There is one colour printer here so try that next. I have screen saves they are in colour, If I print on the laser HP its black and white. Ill find time to hook up the colour printer.

[Karl Loeblein]

First off delete all unused columns and rows even if they look empty. Resave the workbook to reset the last row and column that Excel is tracking. Try going to cell A1 and then press ctrl-shift-end to highlight from A1 to the last known cell with data or formatting. If this nightlights more rows or columns than you have info stored then you still need to remove those extra columns and rows and the re-save.

Second, set you margins to minimum and page direction to landscape. If there’s more than one page wide then you can go to the page settings and force Excel to shrink everything down so it prints one page wide and/or one page long.

if you’re still stuck with empty pages then send me a private msg and I’ll send you my phone number so I can walk you thru all the settings needed.

[Warren Lake]

Hi Karl

thanks I will be okay ill save what you said and I did get stuff to print now to improve it id like to do colour as I have withdrawls in brackets but on the screen them in red its easier to read the spread sheets they just make more sense with the colour. Friend helped me last night by setting me up on zoom and putting an XL spreadsheet on myscreen then we could talk and fill in plus they put formulas in that were doing all the calculations that i past manually did on my calculator.

Nice I didnt know this stuff existed.

[Mike Null]

Like Jim, I use the subscription service so my Excel is always up to date. But have you looked in the print manager to see if you can set the printing parameters from there?

[Warren Lake]

not concerned about being up to date. Was at someones place tonight who between the two of us made up a complicated spread sheet. I never could have done it and she didnt understand all the dynamics that i did. Worked out great and she has a new printer as well so I didnt have to work it out here but already had. there are a number of ways. MY HP printer is only black and white and good hers was colour so we could highlight a few things.