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: Defining a Custom Paper Size.
Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated March 18, 2026)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021
Uttam notes that when he looks at the Page Setup dialog box, he can specify a paper size for his worksheet. He wonders if there is a way that he can specify a custom paper size, different from those listed in the Page Size drop-down list.
Unlike Word, which can accept custom page sizes and can bypass the printer driver to force the printer to accept it, Excel gets its list of page sizes from those defined in the printer driver. This is why there is no way to set a custom page size in Excel.
That being said, some printer drivers do allow you to define custom page sizes. Understand, however, that this is not a feature of Excel—it is entirely dependent on the printer driver being used. You can see if your printer driver will allow custom page sizes by displaying the properties dialog box for the printer (normally displayed by clicking Properties in the Print dialog box) and poking around in the various tabs and controls it contains.
In those cases where your printer driver allows you to define custom paper sizes and you are successful in defining one (or more), those paper sizes should appear within Excel without your need to do anything else. (Well, you may need to restart Excel or Windows after you create the custom paper size, but that will also depend on your printer driver and how it interacts with Windows.)
If your printer driver does not allow you to define a custom paper size, the only workaround is to use one of the paper sizes it provides. Pick a size that is larger than the custom size you would like to use, and then adjust the margins within Excel so that the resulting printable area on the page is the same as you would use on your custom paper size.
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (9390) 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: Defining a Custom Paper Size.
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2026-03-18 07:52:14
jamies
Basic concept
Excel is set to allow you to specify how larger a block of entries are to be displayed for viewing and if you have to, print data, as in put it on a page
and it expects the printer control to set the handling of the page sizes it can handle.
WinWord is based on the premise the data you want to appear on a displayed, and the corresponding printed page will be the entire width of the data in the document
So - most printers now allow fit to page as the page image is sent from the "print" process in the App as an image to the device driver for the printer with you having options to arrange the positioning of that image on the printable area of "paper" the device can put ink onto
So - Winword was effectively , and still is, designed for continuous flow paper - as used in the old style printers
Many of them handling very wide multi-part forms with specialist machinery to separate the parts and slice the width into portions -
e.g the part of an order for filing, and the other side of the page for the warehouse picking and customer enclosure of invoice and payment slip
So - the 22" width option .
With most printing now being done by A4, or Letter/foolscap precut paper, there is rarely an actual ability on a site to print documents that wide,
However - the point of this post -
the use of a 22" wide specification in winword allows some options for handling data that is in a tabular form , or from a database
use a 4K display and set the font in the document to 1, or 2 point and that allows a lot of data to be viewed, and managed - then, maybe put back into Excel, or a flat-for database structure.
the option to set tabs (including alignment on decimal places) in text, and use the Alt key to allow rectangular blocks to be manipulated and then have that set as a table
- with the details in a column being "Folded" can be very useful for dealing with data provided as a .pdf file -
1 caveat -
If going to put data into Excel, or a database, do make sure every data entry (row) has an entry in column 1, or the excel paste will shift data to the left putting the first cell of the row of a table that has data into column "A" in Excel !
2022-07-18 18:10:24
David H.
Hi - I copied the area I wanted to print from the Excel spreadsheet into a Word document, then entered the custom paper size, margins, etc, in Word before printing
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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:
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