Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 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: Flipping Landscape Orientation when Printing.

Flipping Landscape Orientation when Printing

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated August 30, 2022)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Microsoft 365


5

Al asked if there was a way to change the rotation on an Excel worksheet printed in landscape mode. He wants to "flip" the printing by 90 degrees from the way it normally prints, so that it prints correctly for three-hole-punched paper in his printer.

There is nothing intrinsic in Excel that allows you to specify the rotation on printed pages. Also, there is no way to do this from within a macro. Some printers may allow you to control rotation within the printer driver itself, but it is pretty certain that most will not.

The solution may be as simple as rotating the paper in your printer's paper tray by 180 degrees. This may not be possible in some printers, however, and it may mess up printing for some of your other applications.

A third-party solution may be the best way to do what you want. For instance, you may want to check out products such as ClickBook, from Blue Squirrel Software.

https://www.bluesquirrel.com/products/clickbook/

This recommendation should not be taken as an endorsement of the software; we have not tested it in any way. The product description indicates it will work with Excel and it will rotate pages. (And, it appears, do a heck of a lot of other things.) Undoubtedly there are other competing products available through a search of the Internet.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (11888) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Flipping Landscape Orientation when Printing.

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

Preventing Changes to Multiple Selected Worksheets

It is common to select a group of worksheets and then print them. When done, any edits you make may affect the entire ...

Discover More

Specifying a Number of Matches

The wild card searching capabilities of Word are amazing. One thing you can do with wild cards is to specify not only a ...

Discover More

Understanding the Control Panel

The Control Panel is the heart of Windows. It allows you to change how Windows operates and how it communicates with the ...

Discover More

Solve Real Business Problems Master business modeling and analysis techniques with Excel and transform data into bottom-line results. This hands-on, scenario-focused guide shows you how to use the latest Excel tools to integrate data from multiple tables. Check out Microsoft Excel 2013 Data Analysis and Business Modeling today!

More ExcelTips (ribbon)

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 a Draft Watermark

Adding a watermark to the background of a printout can be challenging. This tip explains the different ways you can ...

Discover More

Changing Orientations within a Single Printout

Excel allows you to print out information in either portrait or landscape orientation, but what if you need both types of ...

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 8 + 7?

2019-02-26 09:19:02

MIchael Armstrong

Excellent, Roy. Enlightening and entertaining.


2019-02-25 17:00:14

Roy

I found a feature I could definitively test:

Deselecting and re-selecting

Until today, when I'd highlight some cells and, Horrors!, I got an extra one I didn't want highlighted... I was screwed. I'd have to start over, mostly, though once in a while I could live with it and fix it afterwards.

Since I like to highlight LOTS of rows sometimes, then operate on them, and since it is sooooo easy to click clightly the wrong spot, this was always hugely unproductive for me.

Found MS to say that's all over if you have Excel 19. I checked if I can do it and YES I CAN, YAY! Seriously, freaking YAY!

Which means I can say that "Version 1901" is Excel 19. So it kinda makes the "19" in the Version look like an Excel 19 indicator.

So now I feel better when suggesting if your Build is "16xxxxx" you have Excel 16 and so on.


2019-02-25 10:34:14

Roy

To find your version, click FILE, then ACCOUNT (down with the more frequently needed OPTIONS).

The screen that opens will have two "columns" of material. The rightmost stuff is the info of interest. Near the bottom of it, you will see "About Excel" and the text right under it indicates your "Version" and Build.

That's MS's version of the word version though. What you more likely wonder is found right under the red Office logo at the top of the column. It might say "Subscription Product" and "Microsoft Office 365 Business" since you have an Office 365 product.

What you are surely looking for though is a label like Excel 16 or Excel 19. Sadly, not only does no one in the world seem to provide that information, it seems that MS is at the root of it by being sketchy, via mendacious statements which knowiingly don't really apply to the questions. Like information on nuts and bolts of "Cafeteria Plans" (HR world), no one actually knows. So they talk around it, as if knowlingly, but never answer real questions. Even accountants just cut and paste and email clients.

In theory, you always will have the most recent standalone version you hear of. So since Excel 2019 has been released (last September... must be like new car models...), you theoretically have Excel 2019 since you surely let Windows update Office at least once a month. Theoretically... try to find a uniquely new features list for 2019 and see if you can run a new function, for example. (Like when TEXTJOIN showed up.) Can you? Then you have 2019.

"Can you?" though... can you even find a list of uniquely new things to test? I couldn't find much and it all seemed untestable. So you don't really know, do you? Sigh...

Theoretically, the only difference between 365 and the latest released standalone version is that 365 does everything it does plus "lots" more. But this comes from the same people who try to ocnfuse the pricing for 365 and standalone versions by having a perpetual monthly subscription cost for 365 yet referring to the standalone versions as "perpetual" without really associating the word "license" with that so people can be confused about whether it means that or perhaps the pricing is somehow perpetual and unending so why not go 365 or what IS going on, I'm so confused, kind of thinking. Ever watch Bill Gates on YouTube telling us how benevolent and beneficial monopolies can be? Yeah, 'cause they force the world forward where it just might be all head-in-the-sand, stuck-in-the-mud about things it just really likes. Like YOU like.

So, you have Version 1901 in my above example. Yay.

Last thought on it, might as well spread what's likely bad info... I gave in here, yes, I WAS going to avoid saying this since it feels like falsehood that MS would like spread... but:

Version "1901" perhaps means Excel 19. 19...01, 19? Get it? There, I helped MS lie, probably ("Oh, WE never said that, and can't imagine how such things would get thought of, much less spread! We're shocked...) But maybe, that's what it would mean. Having only two other digits could sstill fit too, since theoretically they are updating 365 once a month and only need 36 versions for that before it would become "22" leaving 63 more numbers to apply to extra or special versions. So... take the thought and run, or view it with suspicion. I hate to do the latter, but really, what has MS earned over their years of obfuscation?

(Some of the above came from an interview a writer had with a VP at MS named Spataro. Clearly, some is mine. BOTH are probably more... OPINION than FACT.)

Perhaps someone else has a better answer.


2019-02-24 10:54:59

MIchael Armstrong

So does Excel in Office 365, whatever it's called. How DO you find out what version of Excel you're using?


2019-02-23 14:00:38

Allan

Perhaps I don't understand the question.
Excel 2007 does offer either Portrait or Landscape printing. I use it often.
Page Layout>Orientation
■ Portrait
■ Landscape


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.