while Excel workbooks can be used
entirely electronically you may find
that you need to print them as well it's
important to understand not only how to
print but how to prepare your workbook
for printing the first thing I would
encourage you to do is to add the Print
Preview icon to your quick access
toolbar if you think you may print your
worksheets it's always good to see how
something looks before you print it and
having the Print Preview command on the
quick access toolbar will make a lot
easier in addition to accessing the
print preview command from the toolbar
you can also access it by left-clicking
the Microsoft Office button and
selecting print from the print menu you
can choose Print Preview which lets you
see how the worksheet will appear
printed quick print which prints one
copy to the default printer or print
which allows you to set specific print
options we'll talk more about this later
let's look at our household budgets in
print preview format I can just select
it from here or from the quick access
toolbar and now we can see that our view
has changed the tab at the top indicates
that we are in print preview on the
bottom left side I can see that we're
viewing page 1 of 2 we can look at our
spreadsheet and see that our full title
doesn't appear and that about half of
our columns don't show up on the page
this means that the rest of the columns
June through December are on page 2 I
can view page 2 by clicking the next
page command in the ribbon and here's
the rest of my spreadsheets and you can
just click the previous page command to
go back to page 1 now
for relief print preview mode let's take
a look at the other commands you have
the print command which opens the print
dialog box you also have the page setup
command and from here you can access
many of the same features as you can on
the ribbon such as orientation scaling
and so much more if you're already in
print preview you can make these changes
from here rather than closing prints
preview and modifying these things from
the ribbon you can also use a zoom
command to zoom in and out I usually
stay zoomed out in print preview so I
can see what everything looks like
finally you have the margins feature
that you can select and deselect I think
this is a really great feature in Excel
right in print preview I can change my
margin and column width settings for
example let's say I want to make the
paid call them smaller and the bill
column wider I just have to hover over
one of the margin markers until the
double arrow appears and then left-click
and drag the line the change is made
right here in print preview and it
reflects it in the actual spreadsheet we
can leave print preview by clicking the
close Print Preview icon
you should also become familiar with the
page Layout tab from here we can
customize some of our options so that
the spreadsheet prints the way we want
it to we saw in print preview that we
can modify our margins and you can do
the same thing my left click in the
margins command in choosing one of the
predefined settings or by entering
custom margins you can also change the
page orientation you may want to do this
depending on whether your worksheet has
more information left to right which
might be better suited to the landscape
orientation to change the orientation
select either portrait or landscape
currently we are in portrait mode
portrait Orient's everything on the page
vertically while landscape
to page horizontally we've already seen
how this worksheet will look printed in
portrait format so let's try landscape
when you select it you won't notice
anything changing the current view but
if you click the print preview command
you'll see now that three extra columns
of information appear on the first page
you may also notice that we're on page
one of three when we change to landscape
some of the information on the bottom of
our worksheet was cut off and nail
appears on page two and page three has
our extra columns even with some
information on other pages the landscape
orientation just makes more sense for
the spreadsheet I can still tweak the
worksheet so all the information appears
I can do this using the scale to fits
group from here I can modify the scale
settings by typing numbers into the
field or using the arrows currently the
worksheet is printing at 100% since
we're not far from getting everything to
print on one page let's decrease that to
75% and see what happens you won't
notice a change in the spreadsheet but
when you click prints preview that's
when you'll be able to tell if all your
information will print on one page and
we can see that it does scale to fit is
a great tool if things just don't quite
fit on the sheet keep in mind that you
can scale things down so much that it's
difficult to read when printed so be
very careful we're going to leave our
paper size set to the standard eight and
a half by eleven but you can change that
here if you want it to by default
the print area is the entire worksheet
but in Excel you can choose to select a
different print area for example if I
only wanted to print to the part of my
worksheet that shows my bills January
through April all I need to do to select
the cells I want by left clicking my
mouse and dragging it over these cells
now click the prints area
man's and choose set print area if we go
up to print preview we can see that only
those cells we selected will be printed
to go back to the default setting which
is the entire worksheet just click the
print area command and then select clear
prints area another feature that is
worth showing is the brakes command
which allows you to insert page breaks
at various points in the spreadsheet
this gives you control in determining
where you want new pages to start this
is especially important when dealing
with long spreadsheets it's quite
possible that the page won't naturally
break in a location that makes sense to
insert a page break select the cell
below where you want the break to appear
now select the breaks command and select
insert break if you click print preview
you'll be able to see that a new page
begins exactly where you place the page
break the last feature I'll show you
before we actually print is a print
titles command I think this is one of
the key things you need to know before
you print multi-page worksheets in Excel
it's a lot easier for me to show you
what this command does rather than just
tell you to see how this works
click the print titles command the page
setup dialog box appears now we want to
select what rows or columns we want to
appear on every printed page I inserted
a page break awhile ago so that my fixed
and variable expenses would appear on
one page and everything else would
appear on another I'd still like the
headings that appear in row 7 to appear
at the top of page 2 so I'll click the
icon select the row in my spreadsheet
click the icon again and then select ok
I can go into page preview and see now
that bills date paid
and the months appear at the top of page
1 and page 2 once I'm ready to print I
can do so from here or from the
Microsoft Office button
I'll just left click the button and
select print and then print and the
print dialog box appears my default
printer appears selected but you can
change that if you wish you can also
click properties to access a variety of
options such as printing in black and
white versus color single versus
double-sided printing and more these
things vary from printer to printer so
we won't look at those now you will need
to choose whether you want to print
specific pages or all of the worksheets
and whether you want to print a selected
area the active sheet which in this case
is sheet 1 or the entire workbook we've
actually only been working with one
sheet right now but if you had
information on these other worksheets
you can print all by selecting work book
once you've specified how many copies
you like to print just click OK
whether you're reviewing data marking a
checklist or distributing handouts these
are all great reasons to start printing
a worksheet or workbook in Excel today