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 a Print Tray for a Worksheet.

Specifying a Print Tray for a Worksheet

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated January 22, 2022)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


Venus has a workbook with twelve worksheets, one for each month. She wants to set it up so that the worksheets for January, April, July, and October print from a different paper tray than the other worksheets.

Unfortunately, there is no way to do this in Excel. Even in a macro there is no way to choose different paper trays. (This has been covered in other issues of ExcelTips.) The only possible solution is rather convoluted. You would need to do the following:

  1. In Windows, set up a printer definition for each paper tray you would be using. Thus, if your printer had four paper trays, you would have four printers defined, each using a different paper tray.
  2. In Excel, create a macro that printed individual worksheets to the appropriate tray-associated printers. Thus, you would have the macro print the worksheets for January, April, July, and October from tray 2 and the rest of the worksheets print from tray 1.

This sounds like a lot of work (it can be), but once it is set up it will work just fine on your system. The problem comes in if you want the same functionality on other systems in your office. The printer definitions are local to the machine on which they are defined, so you would need to define the multiple printers on every system and make sure they were named consistently. The macro would be stored with the workbook, so whoever had access to the workbook could use the macro to do the printing on the desired printers.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (3177) 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 a Print Tray for 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

Splitting Cells by Case

Excel provides several different ways that you can split apart the contents of a cell. One way it doesn't provide is to ...

Discover More

Formatting a Cover Page

Formal reports look better when they are set up with an introductory cover page. Here's how you can add a cover page in a ...

Discover More

Selecting the Entire Document with the Mouse

Want a quick way to select your entire document without taking your hand off the mouse? Try clicking away using the ...

Discover More

Program Successfully in Excel! This guide will provide you with all the information you need to automate any task in Excel and save time and effort. Learn how to extend Excel's functionality with VBA to create solutions not possible with the standard features. Includes latest information for Excel 2024 and Microsoft 365. Check out Mastering Excel VBA Programming today!

More ExcelTips (menu)

Printing a Range of Pages

If your worksheet, when printed, requires more than a single page to print, you may want to only print a range of the ...

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

Printing a Draft of a Worksheet

Want to print out the fastest possible copy of your worksheet? You do so by printing a draft, discussed in this tip.

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 3?

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.