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: Printing a Draft of a Worksheet.

Printing a Draft of a Worksheet

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated April 10, 2021)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


Excel allows you to print drafts of your worksheets. This can be very helpful in speeding up the printing process. When printing drafts, Excel doesn't include graphics or graphic-related items (such as gridlines) in the printed output. Instead, all you see is the text or numbers that make up your worksheet. To print a draft, follow these steps:

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

  4. In the Print area of the dialog box, click on the Draft Quality check box. If the check box is selected, Excel will print drafts of whatever is printed.
  5. Click on OK.

Remember that the exact way in which draft printing is implemented is, in large part, up to your printer. Don't be surprised if you get different results doing a draft print on one printer as compared to another.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2965) 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: Printing a Draft of a Worksheet.

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

Replacing Text and Capitalizing a Letter in One Step

The Find and Replace capabilities of Word are very powerful. You can even use them to do some complex and specific ...

Discover More

Finding the Dates for Minimums and Maximums

If you use Excel to maintain a collection of data, you may need to find information in one column based on information in ...

Discover More

Breaking Into Sentences

Macros allow you to easily extend what you can do with Word. If you have a common editing task, that task can often be ...

Discover More

Solve Real Business Problems Master business modeling and analysis techniques with Excel and transform data into bottom-line results. This hands-on, scenario-focused guide shows you how to use the latest Excel tools to integrate data from multiple tables. Check out Microsoft Excel Data Analysis and Business Modeling today!

More ExcelTips (menu)

Printing Selected Worksheets

When you accumulate quite a few workbooks in folder, you might need to print out selected worksheets from all of the ...

Discover More

Using Multiple Print Settings

Do you have a worksheet from which you need to print only portions of the data available? There are two ways you can ...

Discover More

Printing All or Nothing

Want to make sure that when you worksheet is printed that everything in the workbook is really printed? You can ...

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 four more than 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.