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: Putting Cell Contents in Footers.
You may find it helpful to sometime place the contents of a cell into the footer of a worksheet, and to have the footer updated every time the contents of the cell changed. The easiest way to do this is with a macro. The following is an example of a macro that will place the contents of cell A1 into the left side of the footer:
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: 
Private Sub Worksheet_SelectionChange(ByVal Target As Excel.Range)
ActiveSheet.PageSetup.LeftFooter = Range("A1").Text
End Sub
The macro is run every time Excel does its normal recalculation—meaning every time the contents of any cell changes or someone presses F9. If you want the contents to be in a different part of the footer, you can change LeftFooter to CenterFooter, or RightFooter.
To apply any formatting to the footer other than the default you will need to add special formatting codes, and you can also use special data codes that Excel recognizes for headers and footers. Both the special formatting and special data codes are quite lengthy and have been covered in other issues of ExcelTips.
If you are working with a very large worksheet, then changing the footer every time Excel recalculates may unnecessarily slow down your computer. After all, the footer remains invisible to the user until such time as the worksheet is actually printed. In this case, you simply need to rename the above macro to some other name that you would then manually execute as the last step before printing a worksheet.
Note:
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2522) 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: Putting Cell Contents in Footers.
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2019-03-20 15:21:52
lisa
How can i get the footer to display column g contents for every page break.. for example column g lists department names and my spreadsheet page breaks after every new department name, i would like for the department name to be in the left footer, thanks
2017-01-23 05:57:05
lodi
Can you tell me how to display the cell A1 of sheet 1 in the header of all sheets?
And how can you show different cells that are not next to each other? Like A1; B3 en D6, for example.
Thanks
2016-11-15 03:21:08
Zak
There is a better way.
There's no need to trigger on selection change. Trigger on before-print instead.
You place this event in the ThisWorkbook module and add the following:
Private Sub Workbook_BeforePrint(Cancel As Boolean)
Dim oSheet As Worksheet
For Each oSheet In ThisWorkbook.Worksheets
oSheet.PageSetup.LeftFooter = "Test"
Next oSheet
End Sub
2015-10-09 15:18:41
Tara
I am trying to auto fill a center footer with a specific cell every time I use the workbook. For example, cell C3 hold a name and when I type a name in that cell, I want it to auto fill in the footer for the second page. I must be using macros incorrectly. Can you advise?
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