Speeding Up Printing

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated May 20, 2023)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

If you have a slower-than-desired laser printer, you may despair (or take a lunch break) whenever you need to print multiple copies of a multi-page worksheet. For instance, it can take a long time to print five copies of a three-page worksheet.

The reason for this is that Excel, by default, sends each worksheet individually. Thus, pages 1 through 3 are sent, then 1 through 3 are sent again, and again, until all five sets have been printed.

With slow laser printers, you could get your output much faster if you turned off collating on your printout. This means that page 1 would be printed five times, then page 2 five times, and finally five copies of page 3. You will have to manually collate your output, but there is a good chance you can do this faster than your laser printer could print the five copies.

To turn off collating in Excel, follow these steps:

  1. Choose Print from the File menu. Excel displays the Print dialog box. (See Figure 1.)

    2. Figure 1. The Print dialog box.

  2. Change the Number of Copies setting to reflect the number of copies you want to print.
  3. Make sure the Collate check box is cleared.
  4. Click on OK.

The reason this works is that with collation turned off, Excel sends only a single copy of each page, along with a command that tells how many copies of each page to print. The laser printer then does its printing from memory. The result is that only three pages are transferred to the printer instead of the original fifteen (three times five) for the collated sets.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (3238) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

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

Working with Compressed Files and Folders via NTFS Compression

Windows 10 provides two ways to work with compressed files and folders. One way is to use NTFS compression, which is ...

Discover More

Sorting by Five Columns

Excel allows you to sort but up to three columns, but you may want to sort by more than that. This tip provides ways you ...

Discover More

Locking Track Changes On

Track Changes is a powerful tool to help you know what has been changed in a document. You may want to make sure that ...

Discover More

Solve Real Business Problems Master business modeling and analysis techniques with Excel and transform data into bottom-line results. This hands-on, scenario-focused guide shows you how to use the latest Excel tools to integrate data from multiple tables. Check out Microsoft Excel 2013 Data Analysis and Business Modeling today!

More ExcelTips (menu)

Preventing Printing

Want to prevent your worksheet from being printed? You may be out of luck, as a determined person may be able to find a ...

Discover More

Printing Multiple Worksheets on a Single Page

Got a bunch of worksheets and you want to save paper by printing multiple worksheets on a single piece of paper? There ...

Discover More

Printing to a Disk File

When printing a worksheet, there may be times when you want to send the printer output to a disk file instead of to the ...

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.

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

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 0 + 7?

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.

Links and Sharing
OUR COMPANY
OUR PRODUCTS
OUR SITES
 

Copyright © 2025 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.