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: Printing Limited Pages from a Range of Worksheets.

Printing Limited Pages from a Range of Worksheets

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated November 4, 2023)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365


2

Ian puts together Excel workbooks that typically contain, at minimum, 30 worksheets. Each worksheet, if printed, requires a minimum of eight pages. Ian often updates the data in each worksheet that would appear on the first two printed pages of those worksheets. When it comes time to print, Ian would like a way to print just the first two pages of each worksheet.

When you select a range of worksheets and then choose to print, those worksheets are considered by Excel to be a single, contiguous print job. So, for instance, if you selected 20 worksheets and each worksheet required eight pages, that would not be treated by Excel as 20 individual print jobs of eight pages each, but as a single 160-page print job.

Theoretically you could specify, in the Print dialog box (Excel 2007 and Excel 2010) or the print settings page (Excel 2013 and later versions), that you wanted to print pages 1, 2, 9, 10, 17, 18, etc., but this is prone to error and quite tedious. It gets even more difficult if the worksheets being printed consist of varying numbers of pages.

The best solution is to write a macro that will do the printing for you. The macro can step through however many worksheets you've selected and print only the first two pages of each of those worksheets. The following macro implements this technique:

Sub PrintTwoPages()
    Dim s As Variant

    For Each s In ActiveWindow.SelectedSheets
        s.PrintOut From:=1, To:=2, Preview:=True
    Next s
    Set s = Nothing
End Sub

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (9579) 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: Printing Limited Pages from a Range of Worksheets.

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

Changing the Default Document Format

f you don't want Word to store documents using its default document format, it is an easy task to specify a different ...

Discover More

Patterns of Numbers with a Formula

Want to create a sequential pattern using formulas? It's easy to do if you take a look at how your data repeats. This tip ...

Discover More

Changing the Mouse Pointer

Windows is rather configurable, especially when it comes to the user interface. Here's how you can modify the way that ...

Discover More

Program Successfully in Excel! This guide will provide you with all the information you need to automate any task in Excel and save time and effort. Learn how to extend Excel's functionality with VBA to create solutions not possible with the standard features. Includes latest information for Excel 2024 and Microsoft 365. Check out Mastering Excel VBA Programming today!

More ExcelTips (ribbon)

Changing Paper Size for a Complete Workbook

If you need to change the size of paper on which your worksheets will be printed, it can be bothersome to make the change ...

Discover More

Printing a List of Named Ranges

You already know that you can define names that apply to different ranges of cells and other elements such as formulas. ...

Discover More

Working with Multiple Printers

If you have multiple printers accessible to your computer, you may need a way to quickly print your worksheet on a ...

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 seven more than 1?

2023-11-07 00:04:25

Tomek

When using the suggestion from my earlier comment, you can still print the whole workbook, or full selected sheets, by choosing Ignore Print Area in the print settings.


2023-11-06 23:48:51

Tomek

Wouldn't it be simpler to define Print Area for each sheet, and then print all selected sheets? That way you would have full control of what would be printed. It also would be easier to adjust if on each sheet there were changes that would expand or contract the area that needs to be printed.

No macro needed for this.

Also, you could combine this with manual page breaks to control what prints on first and what on the second page for each sheet,


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.