Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. 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: Specifying an Order for Page Printing.

Specifying an Order for Page Printing

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated August 8, 2020)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021

When the information you have in worksheet won't fit on a single page, Excel automatically breaks it up—at row or column boundaries—and prints the information on multiple pages. You can control the order in which Excel prints pages.

For instance, let's say the information in your worksheet is both too wide and too long to fit on a single sheet. Instead, the printed material will take four pages to print. The first page printed will always be the information at the top left corner of the print area. You can control whether Excel prints the information beneath page one as page two, or the information to the right of page one as page two. Follow these steps:

  1. Select the Page Layout tab of the ribbon.
  2. Click the small icon in the lower-right corner of the Page Setup group. Excel displays the Page Setup dialog box.
  3. Make sure the Sheet tab is selected. (See Figure 1.)

    4. Figure 1. The Sheet tab of the Page Setup dialog box.

  4. In the Page Order area of the dialog box, specify how you want Excel to print your pages. (Notice that as you make a selection, Excel graphically shows how your printing will occur.)
  5. Click on OK.
  6. Print as normal.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (6143) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Specifying an Order for Page Printing.

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

Randomly Assigning Names to Items

If you need to randomly match up items in two lists, there are a variety of techniques you can use. Here are a couple of ...

Discover More

Saving Changes in the Personal Workbook

The Personal workbook is a special place used to store information and macros that you can access from all the other ...

Discover More

Converting Endnotes to Regular Text

If you have a document with lots of endnotes, you may need them converted to regular text so that they can be used ...

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 2019 For Dummies today!

More ExcelTips (ribbon)

Fitting Your Printout on a Page

Tired of wasting paper when you print a worksheet? You can scale Excel's output so that it fits only the number of pages ...

Discover More

Printing Selected Worksheets

When you accumulate quite a few workbooks in a folder, you might need to print out selected worksheets from all of the ...

Discover More

Controlling the Printer in a Macro

Need to access the advanced capabilities of a printer from within an Excel macro? You may be out of luck, unless you ...

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.

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

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 9 + 7?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

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.

Links and Sharing
OUR COMPANY
OUR PRODUCTS
OUR SITES
 

Copyright © 2025 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.