Previewing Your Worksheets Before Printing

Worksheets are typically too wide for standard 8.5-by-11-inch paper and often too wide for legal paper, even if you print them sideways on a page. Fortunately, Excel offers several features that can help, as you will see throughout this chapter.

Before you start tweaking the worksheet layout and adjusting print settings to make a worksheet fit on 8.5-by-11-inch pages, check your page setup to determine how Excel is prepared to print your worksheet(s). Frequently, Excel inserts awkward page breaks, omits titles and column headings from some of the pages, and uses additional settings that result in an unacceptable printout.

graphics/print_preview.gif To check your worksheet before printing, click the Print Preview button (or select File , Print Preview ). This displays your worksheet in Print Preview mode, as shown in Figure 10.1.

Figure 10.1. Using Excel's Print Preview, you can see how a worksheet will look before you print it.

graphics/10fig01.jpg

Along the top of the preview area are several buttons that enable you to flip pages, zoom in and zoom out on the page, and change some common print settings. Table 10.1 lists and describes these buttons in greater detail.

Table 10.1. Print Preview Buttons

Button

Button Name

Purpose

graphics/next_button.gif

Next

Displays the next page of the printout, assuming the worksheet requires more than one page.

graphics/previous_button.gif

Previous

Displays the previous page of the printout, if you flipped to the next page.

graphics/zoom_button.gif

Zoom

Zooms in on a page or, if you zoomed in, zooms out.

graphics/print_button.gif

Print

Starts printing the worksheet.

graphics/set_up.gif

Setup

Displays the Page Setup dialog box, which enables you to set the page size and orientation, adjust margins, add a header or footer, and adjust the way Excel determines page breaks. See the next section, "Changing the Page Setup," for details.

graphics/margins.gif

Margins

Displays margin and column markers around the page's perimeter. You can drag the markers to change the margin or column widths.

graphics/page_breake_preview.gif

Page Break Preview

Displays an image showing where Excel will break pages. You can change the page breaks by dragging the page break lines. See "Checking and Adjusting Page Breaks," later in this chapter, for details.

graphics/close_button.gif

Close

Closes Print Preview and returns to the normal view of your worksheet.

graphics/help-a.gif

Help

Displays additional help specifically about how to view and manipulate worksheets in Print Preview.

One of the best features offered in Print Preview is the ability it gives you to change margins without having to guess what the effects will be. When you click the Margins button, margin and column markers appear, as shown in Figure 10.2. To change the margins or column widths, simply drag a marker. Instantly, Print Preview redraws the screen to show the effects of the change on your worksheet.

Figure 10.2. You can drag a margin marker to change margin settings.

graphics/10fig02.jpg

When you are finished previewing your pages, click the Close button to return to the main Excel screen.

Caution

graphics/cman.gif

Most printers cannot print all the way to the edge of a page. If you drag a margin marker too close to an edge, part of your worksheet might fall into the unprintable region of the page and may appear chopped off. Zoom in on any text that's near the edge of a page to determine whether it will be chopped off during printing.




Absolute Beginner's Guide to Microsoft Office Excel 2003
Absolute Beginners Guide to Microsoft Office Excel 2003
ISBN: 0789729415
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2002
Pages: 189

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