Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, 2024, 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 February 8, 2025)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, 2024, and Excel in Microsoft 365

1

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. If you want to affect multiple worksheets, select all the worksheets you want affected. (Hold down the Ctrl key as you click the tab for each worksheet.)
  2. 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.)
  3. Click the Advanced option at the left of the dialog box.
  4. Scroll through the available options until you find the "Display Options for this Worksheet" section. (See Figure 1.)

    5. Figure 1. The Advanced options of the Excel Options dialog box.

  5. If you did not select multiple worksheets in step 1, then use the drop-down list at the top of the section to 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, 2021, 2024, 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. ...

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What is 3 + 2?

2025-02-08 11:29:11

J. Woolley

You can see page breaks by switching the View from Normal to Page Layout or Page Break Preview. The three views are selected in the status bar at bottom-right of Excel's window or by use of the Ribbon. If you choose the Ribbon, pick
View > Page Layout (Alt+W+P) or View > Page Break Preview (Alt+W+I).

My Excel Toolbox includes the TogglePageBreaks macro to enable or disable display of page breaks on the active worksheet in Normal view. The keyboard shortcut is Ctrl+T P B. Undo (Ctrl+Z) is supported. Here is an abbreviated version:

Sub TogglePageBreaks()
    Const myName As String = "TogglePageBreaks"
    If TypeName(ActiveSheet) <> "Worksheet" Then Beep: Exit Sub
    With ActiveSheet
        .DisplayPageBreaks = (Not .DisplayPageBreaks)
    End With
    Application.OnUndo myName, (ThisWorkbook.Name + "!" + myName)
End Sub

See https://sites.google.com/view/MyExcelToolbox

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