Selecting a Paper Source

Excel supports any printer supported by Windows. This is because Excel uses the features offered by Windows to print documents. Many of the features associated with formatting your document and printing are related to the type of printer you have installed and selected. For instance, some laser printers have different bins for different paper. Windows (and thus Excel) can instruct the printer to select paper from any of the available paper bins.

If your printer supports multiple paper sources, and you want to change the paper source used for your document (for instance, you have a bin that contains legal-sized paper and you want to print on it), you should follow these steps:

1. Choose the Print option from the File menu. Excel displays the Print dialog box. (See Figure 1.)



Figure 1. The Print dialog box.

2. Make sure the printer listed at the top of the dialog box matches the printer you want to use for your printing.
3. If you want to change the printer, use the drop-down list to select a different printer.
4. Click Cancel to close the Print dialog box. Even though you clicked Cancel, Excel remembers the change you made to the printer.
5. Choose the Page Setup option from the File menu. Excel displays the Page Setup dialog box.
6. Make sure the Page tab is selected. (See Figure 2.)



Figure 2. The Page tab of the Page Setup dialog box.

7. Click on the Options button. This displays the Properties dialog box for your printer (the one you selected in steps 2 and 3). This dialog box contains the different printing options available for your printer.
8. Look through the tabs in the dialog box until you find controls that specify where paper should come from. Such a control may be named something like Paper Source, or you may see a Paper Source section with individual controls for the first and subsequent pages. Use the controls to specify where your paper should come from.
9. Click on OK. The Properties dialog box closes and the Page Setup dialog box reappears.
10. Click on OK to close the Page Setup dialog box.
11. Print your worksheet as you normally would.

If, in step 8, you don't see different options for paper sources, then your printer (or printer driver) does not support multiple sources.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2640) 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: Selecting a Paper Source.