Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Excel 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Excel, click here: Displaying the Print Dialog Box in a Macro.

Displaying the Print Dialog Box in a Macro

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated December 9, 2020)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


Before printing anything in Excel, it is not unusual to choose Print from the File menu. This displays the Print dialog box, allowing you to make changes to how the print job will be handled by the printer driver.

If you are creating a macro that is used to print information from your worksheets, you may want to display the Print dialog box programmatically. The user can then choose to print, directly from within your macro.

To add this capability, simply include the following macro line:

bTemp = Application.Dialogs(xlDialogPrint).Show

The Show method results in the Print dialog box being displayed. When this code line is finished, bTemp will be either True or False. If True, it means that the user clicked on OK in the dialog box, thereby printing something. If False, then the user either clicked on Cancel or the Close button to close the dialog box without printing.

Note:

If you would like to know how to use the macros described on this page (or on any other page on the ExcelTips sites), I've prepared a special page that includes helpful information. Click here to open that special page in a new browser tab.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2435) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Excel (Excel 2007 and later) here: Displaying the Print Dialog Box in a Macro.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

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