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.

  4. 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.)
  5. Click on OK.
  6. 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. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Replacing and Formatting at the Same Time

The Find and Replace feature in Word is very powerful. So powerful, in fact, that you can change the formatting on ...

Discover More

Changing the User Name in Existing Comments

Want to change the name that Word associates with various comments previously added to your document? Here are some ideas ...

Discover More

Using a Numeric Portion of a Cell in a Formula

If you have a mixture of numbers and letters in a cell, you may be looking for a way to access and use the numeric ...

Discover More

Professional Development Guidance! Four world-class developers offer start-to-finish guidance for building powerful, robust, and secure applications with Excel. The authors show how to consistently make the right design decisions and make the most of Excel's powerful features. Check out Professional Excel Development today!

More ExcelTips (menu)

Speeding Up Printing

Changing a couple of the print settings in Excel can speed up the printing of your worksheets. This tip examines those ...

Discover More

Printing Multiple Pages On a Piece of Paper

If you want to save paper on a printout, you might consider printing multiple pages on a single piece of paper. This can ...

Discover More

Printout Doesn't Match Display for Some Cells

Have you ever noticed that when you print something, there are times that what is printed doesn't exactly match what you ...

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 five more than 1?

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.