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: Setting Print Quality.

Setting Print Quality

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated June 20, 2020)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


Many printers on the market these days provide a bevy of different features. It is not unusual, for instance, for printers to be able to print on different paper stocks, use different inks, and pull paper from different trays. Some printers even allow you to pick different levels of quality for output.

Print quality is often measured in DPI, or dots per inch. This is a measure of printer resolution and simply means the number of individual ink dots that a printer can produce within a linear inch. Some printer drivers used with Windows allow you to specify which resolution you want to use for a particular print job. If your printer allows you to adjust this setting, you can take advantage of it in Excel in this manner:

  1. Choose Page Setup from the File menu. Excel displays the Page Setup dialog box.
  2. Make sure the Page tab is selected. (See Figure 1.)
  3. Figure 1. The Page tab of the Page Setup dialog box.

  4. Use the Print Quality drop-down list to select the resolution of print quality you want to use.
  5. Click on OK.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2937) 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: Setting Print Quality.

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. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Printing Only Selected Pages

I often need to print only select pages of a document, rather than the whole thing. Word makes it easy to be judicious in ...

Discover More

Adjusting Comment Printouts

Need to print out comments, but in a way that you control what is included in the printout? Here's a way you can extract ...

Discover More

Moving the House Number to Its Own Cell

Excel is great at manipulating data, but sometimes it is difficult to figure out the best way to do the manipulation. ...

Discover More

Best-Selling VBA Tutorial for Beginners Take your Excel knowledge to the next level. With a little background in VBA programming, you can go well beyond basic spreadsheets and functions. Use macros to reduce errors, save time, and integrate with other Microsoft applications. Fully updated for the latest version of Office 365. Check out Microsoft 365 Excel VBA Programming For Dummies today!

More ExcelTips (menu)

Printing Multiple Worksheets on a Single Page

Got a bunch of worksheets and you want to save paper by printing multiple worksheets on a single piece of paper? There ...

Discover More

Printing Rows Conditionally

Need to only print out certain rows from your data? It's easy to do if you apply the filtering or sorting techniques ...

Discover More

Printing a Portion of a Worksheet

Need to print a portion of a worksheet, but don't want to waste paper by printing the whole thing? It's easy to print ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is 3 + 2?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the menu interface (Excel 97, Excel 2000, Excel 2002, or Excel 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.