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: Printing Limited Pages from a Range of Worksheets.

Printing Limited Pages from a Range of Worksheets

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated September 25, 2021)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


Ian puts together Excel workbooks that typically contain, at minimum, 30 worksheets. Each worksheet, if printed, requires a minimum of eight pages. Ian often updates data in each worksheet that would appear on the first two printed pages of those worksheets. When it comes time to print, Ian would like a way to print just the first two pages of each worksheet.

When you select a range of worksheets and then choose to print, those worksheets are considered by Excel to be a single, contiguous print job. So, for instance, if you selected 20 worksheets and each worksheet required eight pages, that would not be treated by Excel as 20 individual print jobs of eight pages each, but as a single 160-page print job.

Theoretically you could specify, in the Print dialog box, that you wanted to print pages 1, 2, 9, 10, 17, 18, etc., but this is prone to error and quite tedious. It gets even more difficult if the worksheets being printed consist of varying numbers of pages.

The best solution is to write a macro that will do the printing for you. The macro can step through however many worksheets you've selected and print only the first two pages of each of those worksheets. The following macro implements this technique:

Sub PrintTwoPages()
    Dim sht As Variant

    For Each sht In ActiveWindow.SelectedSheets
        sht.PrintOut From:=1, To:=2, Preview:=True
    Next
    Set sht = Nothing
End Sub

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (3279) 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: Printing Limited Pages from a Range of Worksheets.

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

Retrieving Worksheet Names

Want to grab the names of all the worksheets in a workbook? Here's how you can stuff all those names into the cells of a ...

Discover More

Incrementing Numeric Portions of Serial Numbers

If you use serial numbers that include both letters and numbers, you might wonder how you can increment the numeric ...

Discover More

Finding Text in Text Boxes

Want to search for text that may appear in a text box rather than in a regular worksheet cell? You can only perform 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)

Setting Print Ranges for Multiple Worksheets

Need the same print range set for different worksheets in the same workbook? It can't be done in one step manually, but ...

Discover More

Repeating Rows at the Bottom of a Page

Excel allows you to repeat rows at the top of every page of a printout. If you want to repeat rows at the bottom of every ...

Discover More

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
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 0 + 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.