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 Selected Worksheets.

Printing Selected Worksheets

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated October 26, 2024)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365


If you have a lot of workbooks that have accumulated over the years, you may have a need to print some of the worksheets out of each of them. For instance, you might have a folder that contains a workbook for each of your company's divisions for the previous decade. If your company has eight divisions, that means you have 80 workbooks in the folder. Now, if you need to print the second-quarter and third-quarter figures (from the second and third worksheets out of each workbook), you start to see the problem. Loading each workbook and then printing selected sheets could take a huge amount of time.

A quicker way is to create a macro that will do the printing for you. The following macro starts by asking you for a directory path. Provided that you specify a path, the macro then starts to load each workbook file in the directory, and then prints the second and third worksheet from each one. (The macro doesn't really care what type of workbook files are in the directory—they could be XLS, XLSX, or XLSM files. It should load them all.) Once printed, the workbook is closed.

Public Sub PrintWorkbooks()
    Dim sCurFile As String
    Dim sPath As String

    'Get the path
    sPath = InputBox("Starting path?", "PrintWorkbooks")
    If sPath <> "" Then
        On Error Resume Next
        Application.ScreenUpdating = False
        If Right(sPath, 1) <> "\" Then
            sPath = sPath & "\"
        End If
        sCurFile = Dir(sPath & "*.xls*", vbNormal)
        Do While Len(sCurFile) <> 0
            Workbooks.Open sPath & sCurFile, , True
            With Workbooks(sCurFile)
                .Worksheets(2).PrintOut
                .Worksheets(3).PrintOut
                .Close SaveChanges:=False
            End With
            sCurFile = Dir
            DoEvents
        Loop
        Application.ScreenUpdating = True
        On Error GoTo 0
    End If
End Sub

Obviously, if you have quite a few workbooks in the directory, printing could take quite some time. You may want to find some time when you have nothing else to do, and then just let the macro start running.

Note:

If you would like to know how to use the macros described on this page (or on any other page on the ExcelTips sites), I've prepared a special page that includes helpful information. Click here to open that special page in a new browser tab.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (11316) 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 Selected 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

Determining if a Document is Corrupt

Think you might have a corrupt document? There is no easy way to tell if this is the case, but there are some things you ...

Discover More

Backwards Date Parsing

Enter information into a worksheet, and you come to anticipate (and count on) how Excel will interpret that information ...

Discover More

Highlighting Cells Containing Specific Text

If you want to highlight cells that contain certain characters, you can use the conditional formatting features of Excel ...

Discover More

Create Custom Apps with VBA! Discover how to extend the capabilities of Office 365 applications with VBA programming. Written in clear terms and understandable language, the book includes systematic tutorials and contains both intermediate and advanced content for experienced VB developers. Designed to be comprehensive, the book addresses not just one Office application, but the entire Office suite. Check out Mastering VBA for Microsoft Office 365 today!

More ExcelTips (ribbon)

Showing Print Preview for the Current Page

The Print Preview feature in Excel can be quite helpful. You might think it would be more helpful, though, if it ...

Discover More

Repeating Columns at the Right

You can design your worksheet so you can repeat rows at the top of a printout or columns at the left. Repeating columns ...

Discover More

Printing Rows Conditionally

Need to only print out certain rows from your data? It's easy to do if you apply the filtering or sorting techniques ...

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 9 + 1?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)


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.