Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, 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: Scaling Your Printing.

Scaling Your Printing

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated June 10, 2023)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365


1

Worksheets can get very big, very fast. Often you want to still print an entire worksheet in a single sheet of paper. Excel makes this easy to do by using scaling.

The easiest way to scale what you print is to display the Page Layout tab of the ribbon. You want to pay particular attention to the Scale to Fit group; it contains controls that cause your output to be scaled. You normally specify a height and width (in pages) and Excel takes care of calculating the scale necessary to fit the data into that number of pages.

One of the tricks I often use is to set the Scale to Fit settings to 1 page wide by 99 pages tall. In this way, I am sure the output will fit on one page across. Since my output isn't over 99 pages in length, no shrinking is done on this dimension. I end up with output that is 1 page wide by how ever many pages long Excel needs to print.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (6246) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Scaling Your 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

Moving Macros from the Personal Workbook

Need to move a macro out of your Personal.xls workbook and into a regular workbook? You can do it using familiar editing ...

Discover More

Alerts About Approaching Due Dates

You may use Excel to track due dates for a variety of purposes. As a due date approaches, you may want that fact drawn to ...

Discover More

Section Breaks Changing On Their Own

Sometimes Word does things that just don't make sense. For instance, have you ever inserted a section break into your ...

Discover More

Professional Development Guidance! Four world-class developers offer start-to-finish guidance for building powerful, robust, and secure applications with Excel. The authors show how to consistently make the right design decisions and make the most of Excel's powerful features. Check out Professional Excel Development today!

More ExcelTips (ribbon)

Selecting a Paper Source

When you print a worksheet, you may want to specify that the printout be done on a particular paper tray in a particular ...

Discover More

Printing Multiple Pages On a Piece of Paper

If you want to save paper on a printout, you might consider printing multiple pages on a single piece of paper. This can ...

Discover More

Printing a Worksheet List

Want a list of all the worksheets in your workbook? Here's a short, handy macro that will place all the worksheet names ...

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 nine minus 1?

2023-06-12 22:44:15

Tomek

You actually do not have to specify number of pages vertically, just delete the number that is there and leave it blank. Excel will only adjust the printout size one way. It works also for several pages printed horizontally, but only one vertically. And you even are not limited to single column or row of pages. I frequently printed a very large spreadsheet forcing the width to be two pages, and however many pages were needed vertically. That way I compromised between readability of not-too-small print and not needing a very large desk. Especially if the printer cannot print tabloid size.


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.