Print Areas in Excel – All You Need to Know

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Print Areas - answer and key to printing spreadsheets from Excel. They make it possible for you to print the exact part of the document.

Let's face it: in real life, spreadsheets are large and complex. When you want to print them, you only want to print selected areas like the results of some calculations, not the whole document.

Thanks to Print Areas doing it in Excel is quite easy. Let me show you how to do it.

Create one or more print areas

  1. Select range which you want to set as print area

    Selected cells
    Selected cells
  2. Go to Page Layout tab

    Click Page Layout tab
    Click Page Layout tab
  3. Click Set Print Area item in Print Area

    Page Layout tab - wide window
    Page Layout tab - wide window
    Page Layout tab - narrow window
    Page Layout tab - narrow window
  4. Created area will be visible as a light border around cells

    New Print Area
    New Print Area

View a print area

By default, print areas are shown as an outlined boxes in the worksheet.

Viewing print area
Viewing print area

If your sheet is more graphically complicated those outlines might not be visible. In order to find where those areas are use Page Break Preview from View tab.

Excel in Page Break Preview
Excel in Page Break Preview

To go back click Normal

Add cells to an existing print area

You can enlarge existing print areas by adding adjacent cells. It is done similarly to adding new area but instead you click add existing button.

  1. Select range of cells which you want to add to an existing area

    Select cells
    Select cells
  2. Go to Page Layout, in Print Area options click Add to Print Area

    Click Add to Print Area
    Click Add to Print Area
  3. As a result, the print area are will be extended

    Extended Print Area
    Extended Print Area

Clear a print area

  1. Go to Page Layout, in Print Area options click Clear Print Area

    Clear Print Area
    Clear Print Area

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