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.
You'll find everything you need in the backstage view… under Print.
Here you can adjust your settings, see a preview, and print your workbook all in one place.
Now, you could just enter the number of copies you want, and click the Print button right
away.
But if you want more control over the finished product, you might want to take a look at
the options below.
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, so we can review how these options work.
A worksheet is considered active when it's selected, like my 2012 worksheet is selected
now.
To print more than one worksheet (but not the entire workbook), just hold Ctrl on your
keyboard while you click the sheets you want.
Now Excel will print the worksheets for 2010, 2011, and 2012.
But that's not what I want.
The data I'm after is more specific: the sales records for the top 20 sales people in 2013.
I've already sorted that information from largest to smallest, and marked the top 20
with a gold star.
We don't want to print the entire worksheet, because that would include more data than
we need.
Why don't we print a selection instead?
Start by selecting the data you want to print (including your header row if you have one).
Then go back to the Print pane in the Backstage view.
Watch the print preview closely, and you'll notice it changes when we switch from Print
Active Sheets… to Print Selection.
Now only my current selection appears on the printout—the top 20 sales people for 2013.
I do see some other things I'd like to address now, starting with the way the data fits on
the printout.
Right now, the last column is getting cut off because there isn't enough room on page
1.
We can probably fix that by adjusting the scaling of the worksheet.
Just open the menu here… and you'll find several different options to choose from.
If we choose Fit Sheet on One Page…
Excel will shrink the printout to just the right size, so it fits on a single sheet of
paper.
This can be a great way to condense your worksheet, but be aware that the text will become harder
to read the more you scale it down.
I think I'll switch back to No Scaling… and to make the data fit, I'll adjust the
margins instead.
You can use the menu here to choose one of the predefined sizes… or you can click the
Show Margins button in the bottom right corner of your preview.
This feature makes it easy to customize your margins using the guides you see here.
I'm just going to make them a little narrower by clicking and dragging… and now we can
see all eight columns without scaling the size of the worksheet.
There are still several other options in the Print pane that let you control collating,
orientation, and paper size.
But I think I'm happy with my worksheet the way it is.
When you're ready, go ahead and click the Print button at the very top of the pane.
Now you just have to wait for your worksheet to finish printing.