Protecting Print Settings

Sharing an Excel workbook with a group also means being involved with different printers, different PCs and different user requirements and expectations. This is nowhere more apparent then when it comes to printing a worksheet. Different users obviously have different PCs and may have different printers, so the printed results can vary from one user to another. In addition, different users may change the print ranges in what is produced from a worksheet.

If you are responsible for a particular worksheet, you may want to somehow protect the various print settings you've established so that they aren't garbled by other users. Perhaps the easiest way to do this is to save your print settings in a macro, and then run that macro every time the workbook is closed. In that way, the settings can be changed back to the "defaults" you specify, without worry that users will mess them all up.

For instance, the following macro shows how you can set all the print settings for a particular print job:

Sub Auto_Close()
    With ActiveSheet.PageSetup
        .LeftHeader = ""
        .CenterHeader = ""
        .RightHeader = ""
        .LeftFooter = ""
        .CenterFooter = ""
        .RightFooter = ""
        .LeftMargin = Application.InchesToPoints(1)
        .RightMargin = Application.InchesToPoints(1)
        .TopMargin = Application.InchesToPoints(1)
        .BottomMargin = Application.InchesToPoints(1)
        .HeaderMargin = Application.InchesToPoints(0.5)
        .FooterMargin = Application.InchesToPoints(0.5)
        .PrintHeadings = False
        .PrintGridlines = False
        .PrintComments = xlPrintNoComments
        .CenterHorizontally = False
        .CenterVertically = False
        .Orientation = xlPortrait
        .Draft = False
        .PaperSize = xlPaperLetter
        .FirstPageNumber = xlAutomatic
        .Order = xlDownThenOver
        .BlackAndWhite = False
        .Zoom = False
        .FitToPagesWide = 1
        .FitToPagesTall = 99
        .PrintErrors = xlPrintErrorsDisplayed
        .PrintArea = "MyPrintArea"
        .PrintTitleRows = ""
        .PrintTitleColumns = ""
    End With
End Sub

To make the macro work for your particular needs, simply modify the settings to match whatever your requirements are.

Of course, when someone else opens your workbook, the macro may be disabled automatically or they may see a notification that there are macros in it. If they choose to disable the macros, then your default-setting macro won't run when the workbook is closed. The solution, of course, is for you to open the workbook, enable the macros, and then close the workbook. This runs the macro and your settings are again restored as you want them.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2993) 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: Protecting Print Settings.