Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Microsoft 365. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: Controlling Display of Page Breaks.

Controlling Display of Page Breaks

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated July 20, 2019)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Microsoft 365


7

There are two types of page breaks that can appear in an Excel worksheet: manual or automatic. You insert page breaks manually by using the Breaks tool on the Page Layout tab of the ribbon. Automatic page breaks are those that are calculated by Excel based on various settings, such as page size, margins, cell size, and the like.

Excel allows you to control whether page breaks are displayed on-screen (as dashed lines) by following these steps:

  1. Display the Excel Options dialog box. (In Excel 2007 click the Office button and then click Excel Options. In Excel 2010 or a later version, display the File tab of the ribbon and then click Options.)
  2. Click the Advanced option at the left of the dialog box.
  3. Scroll through the available options until you find the Display Options for this Worksheet section. (See Figure 1.)
  4. Figure 1. The Advanced options of the Excel Options dialog box.

  5. Using the drop-down list at the top of the section, indicate which worksheet you want to affect.
  6. Set the Show Page Breaks check box as desired. If selected, then Excel displays page breaks on-screen for the designated worksheet.
  7. Click OK.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (8847) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Controlling Display of Page Breaks.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Changing the Footnote Continuation Notice

When a footnote needs to span two printed pages, Word prints a continuation notice at the end of the footnote being ...

Discover More

Selecting an Entire Worksheet

While editing, you may need to select everything in a worksheet. Excel provides three easy ways you can accomplish this.

Discover More

Intelligently Starting a New Paragraph

When using styles in a document, you can increase your productivity by letting Word know what paragraph style you expect ...

Discover More

Excel Smarts for Beginners! Featuring the friendly and trusted For Dummies style, this popular guide shows beginners how to get up and running with Excel while also helping more experienced users get comfortable with the newest features. Check out Excel 2013 For Dummies today!

More ExcelTips (ribbon)

Changing Ribbon Tool Defaults

The tools available on the Ribbon allow you to easily format information in a worksheet. If you'd like those tools to ...

Discover More

Specifying the Behavior of the Enter Key

You type information in a cell and press Enter. What happens then? Excel allows you to specify exactly what should ...

Discover More

Saving Excel Configuration Settings

Excel lets you change lots of settings that affect the configuration of your system. At some point you may want to save ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is one less than 9?

2020-06-24 09:33:44

Philip Andrew

Not showing on my worksheet for some reason.


2020-06-23 14:12:34

David

Still does not appear. No thank you.


2020-06-16 15:58:04

Alan Scanlan

Thanks so much for the help Allen.
Thanks to you and a few others I have been called a spread sheet wizard, although I do not consider myself that good (yet)!

Sincerely,

Alan Scanlan


2019-07-23 22:43:28

rob

If this option is not selected, page breaks will also be displayed on the worksheet (for the session) after doing a print preview.


2019-07-21 11:36:04

Willy Vanhaelen

@Allan
I you have no objection to using macros, you can copy this one to your personal workbook and asign it to a button in the QAT:

Sub TogglePageBreaks()
ActiveSheet.DisplayPageBreaks = Not ActiveSheet.DisplayPageBreaks
End Sub

It has the advantage that you can turn it on and off at a flip of a switch and also quickly remove them after printing.


2019-07-21 07:03:24

Peter Atherton

Allan

Select all the sheet Tabs before following the instructions in the article. I've only done this in a almost blank workbook but is should work. See the figure

(see Figure 1 below)

Figure 1. Page Breaks for multiple pages


2019-07-20 13:16:10

Allan

Unfortunately, must do this separately for each Worksheet. Would be nice if could do this for a whole Workbook.


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the ribbon interface (Excel 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the menu interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.