Excel workbooks can be used completely
electronically but sometimes you need to
print them too it's important to
understand the basics of printing plus
the other things you have control over
like what parts of the workbook to print
and more if you're familiar with Excel
2007 it might look like the print
preview mode is missing not so just go
to the backstage view and you'll find
everything has been combined under print
where you can adjust your settings see a
preview and print your workbook all in
one place if your workbook contains
multiple sheets the first thing you'll
need to do is decide whether to print
only the active sheets which is the
default print method or the entire
workbook you can also narrow it down to
just your current selection let's go
back to my workbook for a minute so we
can take a look at what these options
mean a worksheet is considered active if
it's selected like my 2010 worksheet is
selected now to print multiple
worksheets just press and hold ctrl on
your keyboard while you click the other
sheets that you'd like to make active
now Excel will print the worksheets for
2008 2009 and 2010 but that's not what I
want the data I'm after is more specific
the sales records for the top 40
salespeople in 2010
I've already sorted that information
from largest to smallest and marked the
top 40 with a gold star but how do we go
about printing it
we'll use the option to print only the
current selection first you'll need to
select the data you want to print
including your header row now go back to
the print pane in the backstage view
keep your eye on the print preview and
notice how the print area changes when
we switch from print active pages to
print selection now only my current
selection will be on the printout the
top 40 salespeople for 2010
I do see some other things I'd like to
address now starting with the page
orientation our current orientation is
portrait or vertical a good choice when
your goal is to fit more rows on each
page I'd like to switch to landscape or
horizontal so I can fit more columns
instead
another option is to go to scaling and
choose fit sheet on one page from the
drop-down menu this automatically
shrinks your printout so the whole thing
fits on a single sheet of paper I'm
going to stick with no scaling and then
take a closer look at how Excel is
handling the data there's enough of it
here that the last couple of rows have
to be listed on a separate page and the
months have been split up too that's not
a problem the printout will be nice and
easy to read once we add column and row
headings to each page also known as
print titles for example it would help
to know what months these figures are
for and the employees that they belong
to all you have to do is go to the page
Layout tab and then click the print
titles command see the field for rows to
repeat at the top click the icon beside
it and your mouse becomes a selection
arrow now just click the rows you want
to appear at the top of each printed
page click the icon again to go back to
the dialog box and do the same for your
columns if you have any you'd like to
repeat in my case I want the employees
names to appear on every page click OK
and we'll be able to confirm the change
once we get back to the print pane but
there's one more thing I'd like to
adjust while I'm here remember how the
last couple of rows had to be put on a
separate page because there wasn't
enough room I'd like more control over
that instead of the last couple of rows
I want the data to be divided evenly 20
people on each page to do this I'm going
to insert a page break just click the
row below where you want the break to
happen now go up to the breaks command
and choose insert page break now we can
confirm our print titles and the fact
that the break appears in the right
place by selecting our top 40 again and
going back to the print pane so here's
page 1 and page 2 fantastic it split up
the data exactly how I wanted it we can
also see our print titles now to the
header row and the column of names that
we specified appear on every page of the
printout I'm almost ready to print the
very last thing I want to do is adjust
the margins right now my print area
only fit five months per page and I want
to fit six just click the show margins
button in the bottom right corner of
your preview and you can easily adjust
the margins without even leaving the
print pane let's make these a little
narrower perfect now I'm ready to print
all you have to do is click the button
and the data you've prepared will be
printed exactly how it looked in the
preview like what you just saw rate it
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