Using Excel for Printing Purposes


SharePoint uses Internet Explorer to display and print content, which severely limits the user's control over printing options. You can't, for example, simply print out the contents of a list because IE will print the page as it displays on the screen, including graphics and menus. Changing the page margins and switching to Landscape view can help, but in many cases there are too many rows and columns of information to show up on the print job.

As mentioned in Lesson 10, the Datasheet view's task pane provides several Excel tools, one of which is Print with Excel. To print a list with Excel you must have Excel 2003 installed and should follow these steps:

1.

From within a library or list, click Edit in Datasheet on the toolbar to view the list in Datasheet view.

2.

Click the Task Pane button in the toolbar above the content of the list, or click the right-hand border of the content area to reveal the task pane.

3.

Click Print with Excel. If the Opening Query window appears, click Open, which indicates you trust the source of the file.

4.

A new spreadsheet will open, containing the content of the SharePoint list, surrounded by a thick blue line indicating that the range of data is linked to an external source. The Print dialog box will appear as well, allowing you to print the content with just a single click. Alternatively, you can close the Print dialog box and provide some additional formatting.

Figure 14.1 shows the results of following these steps for the tasks list in the ProServices site. The task list was updated with some new tasks, so a total of 14 tasks appear in the list. It is not unusual to see lists that grow to dozens or hundreds of items in production environments. From here you are free to format the content however you likeadding graphics, headers, and footers to the sheet, adding gridlines, and making changes to fonts and colors.

Figure 14.1. List content exported to Excel.




    Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft SharePoint 2003 in 10 Minutes
    Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft SharePoint 2003 in 10 Minutes
    ISBN: 672327236
    EAN: N/A
    Year: 2004
    Pages: 181

    flylib.com © 2008-2017.
    If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net