Setting the Print Area

Excel allows you to define easily the portion of your worksheet that should be printed. To set the print area, follow these steps:

1. Select the worksheet you want to print.
2. Display the Page Setup dialog box. (Choose Page Setup from the File menu or, if you are using excel 2007, display the Page Layout tab of the ribbon and then click the small icon at the lower-right of the Page Setup group.)
3. Make sure the Sheet tab is selected. (Click here to see a related figure.)
4. In the Print Area field enter a range representing what you want printed.
5. Click on OK.

In step 4 you can enter either an actual cell range (such as A2:G35), or you can enter a name that has been assigned to a range. Excel even allows you to specify multiple parts of the same worksheet that should be printed. To do this, simply enter the ranges (or names) separated by commas, for example, B3:F14,B19:F30.

You can also use the mouse to select the print area. To do this, click first in the Print Area field (this causes the insertion point to appear in the field). Then use the mouse to select the cells that you want included. As you select a range of cells, the address of the range is automatically shown in the Print Area field.

An entirely different (and much easier) way to set the print area involves these steps, provided you are using a version of Excel prior to Excel 2007. (There is no equivalent to these steps in Excel 2007.)

1. Select the cells you want included in the print area.
2. Choose Print Area from the File menu. Excel displays a submenu.
3. On the submenu, choose Set Print Area.