Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 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: Hiding Errors on Printouts.

Hiding Errors on Printouts

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated November 1, 2025)
This tip applies to Excel 2002 and 2003

Excel has a number of different errors that can appear in your worksheet, for any number of reasons. Errors values show up with a pound (hash) symbol followed by the type of error, as in #DIV/0! or #N/A.

When you print your worksheet, Excel prints the error values, by default. If you prefer, you can choose to have Excel not print the error values. 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 displayed. (See Figure 1.)

    3. Figure 1. The Sheet tab of the Page Setup dialog box.

  3. Use the Cell Errors As drop-down list to specify how you want the error values printed.
  4. Click OK to close the Page Setup dialog box.

In step 3, you have several options in the drop-down list:

  • Displayed. Prints the error values as they show in the worksheet.
  • <Blank>. Replaces the error value with a blank; effectively hides the error values.
  • --. Replaces the error value with two dashes.
  • #N/A. Replaces all error values with #N/A.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2989) applies to Microsoft Excel 2002 and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Excel (Excel 2007 and later) here: Hiding Errors on Printouts.

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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