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: Specifying an Order for Page Printing.

Specifying an Order for Page Printing

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated June 11, 2022)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

When the information you have in worksheet won't fit on a single page, Excel automatically breaks it up—at row or column boundaries—and prints the information on multiple pages. You can control the order in which Excel prints pages.

For instance, let's say the information in your worksheet is both too wide and too long to fit on a single sheet. Instead, the printed material will take four pages to print. The first page printed will always be the information at the top left corner of the print area. You can control whether Excel prints the information beneath page one as page two, or the information to the right of page one as page two. Follow these steps:

  1. Choose Page Setup from the File menu. Excel displays 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.

  3. In the Page Order area of the dialog box, specify how you want Excel to print your pages. (Notice that as you make a selection, Excel graphically shows how your printing will occur.)
  4. Click on OK.
  5. Print as normal.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2979) 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: Specifying an Order for Page Printing.

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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