Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007 and 2010. 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: Changing Orientations within a Single Printout.

Changing Orientations within a Single Printout

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated June 16, 2022)
This tip applies to Excel 2007 and 2010


5

When Greg prints his workbook, he would like some worksheets to print in portrait orientation and some to print in landscape orientation. Greg knows he can print the worksheets one at a time, but he would like to print the workbook in one go. He wonders if there is some way to do this.

Actually, it is easier than one would think. Excel allows you to set the page parameters independently for each worksheet in a workbook. Thus, you can set some as landscape and some as portrait and later just print the whole workbook. Excel keeps track and orients the printing properly for each worksheet.

Here's the easy way to set orientation for a group of worksheets:

  1. Click the tab of the first worksheet.
  2. Hold down the Ctrl key as you click tabs of other worksheets you want to have the same orientation as the first worksheet. Each worksheet tab should appear "highlighted," indicating you are constructing a set of selected worksheets.
  3. Display the Page Layout tab of the ribbon.
  4. Use the Orientation tool to specify whether you want the selected worksheets to be portrait or landscape orientation.
  5. Click on a worksheet tab different than the one that is currently selected. The tabs should go back to normal, indicating that you are no longer working with a selection set.

When you later want to print your worksheets, simply select the worksheets you want to print before doing the print, or display the Print dialog box and specify that you want to print the entire workbook.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (11286) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007 and 2010. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Changing Orientations within a Single Printout.

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

Multiple Document Directories for Word

Word 97 users would follow these steps to specify multiple directories for documents.

Discover More

Displaying Toolbars

Toolbars allow you to access common tasks quickly and easily. Excel provides a wide variety of toolbars, and you can even ...

Discover More

Generating a Font Sample Sheet

You can have quite a few fonts installed on your system, each of them managed by Windows. If you would like a document ...

Discover More

Save Time and Supercharge Excel! Automate virtually any routine task and save yourself hours, days, maybe even weeks. Then, learn how to make Excel do things you thought were simply impossible! Mastering advanced Excel macros has never been easier. Check out Excel 2010 VBA and Macros today!

More ExcelTips (ribbon)

Printing Workbooks in a Folder

This tip presents two techniques you can use to print multiple workbooks all at the same time. Both techniques involve ...

Discover More

Scaling Your Printing

If you want to cram more of your worksheet onto each page of a printout, one way to do it is by using scaling. Here's how ...

Discover More

Printing Selected Worksheets

When you accumulate quite a few workbooks in a folder, you might need to print out selected worksheets from all of the ...

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 one less than 9?

2016-02-11 18:49:35

Angie

I want my second page on a single sheet to print landscape and the first to print portrait and I want them to come out two sided. 2013 Office Professional is the version I'm using. Without doing it one step at a time and having to figure out how to put the paper in the machine to make the second copy, and I do it in one step?


2015-12-17 10:56:22

Gary Lundblad

I am with Mark. I have a workbook that has about 20 worksheets. About 7 of them have two pages that need to be portrait and two that need to be landscape. Right now I print the first set, then run a macro to change the print select and the print orientation, and then print the rest. Then I close the workbook without saving it so I don't mess up my settings, although I've forgotten and accidentally saved a couple of times- AAGGHH!

I would love it if there was a way to do this without macros, but I don't think there is. If there is, someone please share how.

Thank you!

Gary


2015-12-17 10:52:04

Stu Cram

Hi Mark
To print different regions of the same worksheet in different orientations automatically, you need a macro.

- select the first region, set the print area and orientation, print
- repeat for the next region

Something like this:

Sub print_two_regions()

With ActiveSheet.PageSetup
.PrintArea = "B40:F80" ' region # 1 (41 rows x 5 columns)
.Orientation = xlPortrait
' .FitToPagesWide = 1
' .FitToPagesTall = 1
End With
ActiveWindow.SelectedSheets.PrintOut Copies:=1

With ActiveSheet.PageSetup
.PrintArea = "H40:AA50" ' region # 2 (11 rows x 20 columns)
.Orientation = xlLandscape
' .FitToPagesWide = 1
' .FitToPagesTall = 1
End With
ActiveWindow.SelectedSheets.PrintOut Copies:=1

End Sub


2015-12-11 10:48:18

Willy Vanhaelen

@Mark Greening

You can do it manually.

- Print your first page Landscape
- Change the print settings to Portrait
- Print you second page


2015-12-09 15:58:03

Mark Greening

Within the same Sheet, is it possible to print page 1 Landscape and page 2 Portrait?


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.