Creating a Multi-Worksheet Report

Kathy used to use Report Manager in Excel 2003 for a monthly report that spanned several worksheets. She wonders if there is a way to create a multi-worksheet report and be "print ready" with the latest versions of Excel. She has been working with views, but once she selects more than one worksheet, the Custom View button is gray.

There is no need to use custom views to get the output you want. In fact, you don't need to use anything except regular print areas and the printing capabilities of Excel. Follow these general steps if you are using Excel 2007:

1. Create your worksheets as you normally would.
2. On each of the worksheets you want included in your report, define a print area that covers the range of cells you want printed from that worksheet. (How you define print areas is covered in other ExcelTips.)
3. Select all the worksheets that you want included in your report, as a group.
4. Press Ctrl+P. Excel displays the Print dialog box. (See Figure 1.)



Figure 1. The Print dialog box.

5. Make sure that the Active Sheets radio button is selected.
6. Make sure the Ignore Print Areas check box is cleared.
7. Click OK.

That's it; you end up with a printout that spans the multiple worksheets and includes only the appropriate print area on each worksheet. If you are using Excel 2010 the steps are a bit different:

1. Create your worksheets as you normally would.
2. On each of the worksheets you want included in your report, define a print area that covers the range of cells you want printed from that worksheet. (How you define print areas is covered in other ExcelTips.)
3. Select all the worksheets that you want included in your report, as a group.
4. Press Ctrl+P. Excel displays the File tab of the ribbon with the Print area displayed.
5. Click the first option under the Settings heading. In the resulting drop-down list, make sure that Print Active Sheets is selected and that Ignore Print Area is not selected.
6. Click Print.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (9391) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, and 2013.