Increasing Row Height for Printing

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated April 15, 2023)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365


1

Jeaux works with a lot of long worksheets that contain data she may need to print. Once printed, she then writes in the space next to the column of data. All rows are auto sized to fit contents, therefore they vary in height. Jeaux is looking for a macro that will take the selected rows and incrementally increase them, say by a given percentage. (Since they are different heights, she cannot just set them all to the same height.) This way, she can make the rows large enough for handwriting, but still be able to see all of the data. It would also be nice to have a way to set the rows' height back to what they were before she printed.

This task is very easy to accomplish with a macro. All you need to do is step through the selected rows and adjust the RowHeight property, as is done in this macro:

Sub ExpandSelectedRows()
    Dim rRow As Range
    Dim dEnlarge As Double

    dEnlarge = 1.25
    For Each rRow In Selection.Rows
        rRow.RowHeight = rRow.RowHeight * dEnlarge
    Next
End Sub

In this case, the dEnlarge variable contains 1.25, which means that the formula in the For ... Next loop will increase the row height by 25 percent. The value of this variable can be changed to reflect the percentage you want to use, or you could modify the macro to ask the user for a percentage:

Sub ExpandSelectedRows()
    Dim rRow As Range
    Dim dEnlarge As Double
    Dim sTemp As String

    sTemp = InputBox("Increase by what percent?")
    dEnlarge = Val(sTemp)
    If dEnlarge > 1 Then dEnlarge = dEnlarge / 100
    If dEnlarge < 1 Then dEnlarge = dEnlarge + 1

    If dEnlarge > 0 Then
        For Each rRow In Selection.Rows
            rRow.RowHeight = rRow.RowHeight * dEnlarge
        Next
    End If
End Sub

If you later want to get the rows back to their original height, the following single-line macro will do the job:

Sub AutfitRows()
  Cells.EntireRow.AutoFit
End Sub

This macro works because the rows in your worksheet originally were "auto sized to fit contents." While a macro could have been written to reverse the enlarging steps (dividing by dEnlarge instead of multiplying), it would only work reliably if the ExpandSelectedRows macro wasn't run multiple times.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (21) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365.

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. ...

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What is six more than 9?

2023-04-15 12:29:33

J. Woolley

My Excel Toolbox includes the AdjustRowHeights macro to adjust the height of selected rows by a fixed increment or a proportional multiplier. The AdjustColumnWidths macro will adjust the width of selected columns in the same way. Both macros support Undo (Ctrl+Z).
See https://sites.google.com/view/MyExcelToolbox/


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