Massive Printouts

Summary: Have you ever wanted to do a simple printout, only to find that Excel spit out dozens of pages, and most of them were blank? It's happened to all of us; here is why the problem happens and what you can do about it. (This tip works with Microsoft Excel 97, Excel 2000, Excel 2002, Excel 2003, and Excel 2007.)

Ever had this happen to you? You run a print job and are surprised to get 22 pages of output. That would have been fine, except you were expecting one or two at the most. Problem is, most of the pages that came out of the printer are empty!

The problem is most likely that you mistakenly selected a cell at a distant column and row and bumped into your Space Bar. That leaves no visible signs, but Excel thinks you want to print this space.

The solution is as simple as this:

Press Ctrl+End. Excel moves to the cell it thinks is at the lower-right corner of your data.
If there is nothing else in that column, delete the column.
If there is something in the column, but nothing else in that row, delete the row.
Use Print Preview to check how many pages Excel will print. Hopefully you are back to your expected number of pages.
Print your worksheet as normal.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2218) applies to Microsoft Excel versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

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Massive Printouts