Excel Basics:
Setup Sheet

Step-by-Step: Setup Sheet

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What you will learn:

to set the print area from Page Setup dialog to print the spreadsheet

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Start with: (budget.xls from the resource files)

Open Page Setup | Sheet tab

1. Open from your resource files your old friend budget.xls.
    
2. If necessary, select  the sheet Budget and then open the Print Preview. [File | Print Preview or click the Print Preview button on the toolbar.] How many pages will it take to print this sheet?
    
3. Close the Print Preview.
    
4. Open the Page Setup dialog from the menu. [File | Page Setup...] 
    
5. Click on the Sheet tab. This dialog sets options for how the selected worksheet will print. All checkboxes and text boxes should be blank at this time.

If you opened the Page Setup dialog from the Print Preview, some of your choices are not available!

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Print Area: Keyboard

The Print Area is the cells which will be printed.  

1. Type in the Print Area text box the range  a1:d4 .
    
2. Click on the Print Preview button. Not much will print! Only the cells in the range that you typed, a1:d4, which is just the titles and some labels.
    
3. Click on the Close button on the Preview window tool bar. Print Preview closes and you are back in Normal view. The dialog closed, too. Your Print Area is still a1:d4 and has a dashed border around it in Normal view now.

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Print Area: Mouse

When you don't know the cell references, you can show Excel which cells you want to print by clicking or dragging in the sheet itself.

1. Open the Page Setup dialog again to the Sheet tab.
    

2. Click on the Collapse Dialog button at the right end of the Print Area text box. The dialog collapses to show just the text box. The button changes to the Restore Dialog button. The collapsed dialog will stay on top while you work in the spreadsheet itself.

    

   The Collapse Dialog button appears in all Excel dialog text boxes in which you can enter cell references. You will use it again!
    

3. In budget.xls on the sheet Budget, drag from cell A1 to cell D13. This selects the Inflows for the first quarter of the year and the sheet titles. The absolute references appear in the text box. On the worksheet, the Print Area is surrounded by a dashed line.

   
   Selected area with cell references in Print Area text box.

4. Click the Restore Dialog button at the end of the text box to return the collapsed dialog to its original larger size.

    Losing changes: If you close the dialog with the Close button, all your changes in that dialog will be lost! You should always restore the dialog first and then click on the OK button to exit. (Unless, of course, you want to forget all about what you just did!)
    

5. Click on the Print Preview button. Only the cells you selected show as printing.

   

   You can select non-adjacent cells and ranges. Their range cell references in the Print area text box will be separated with a comma, like $E$3:$F$6, $G$15:$I:$89. Each range will print on a separate page.

   The Print Area can also be set by first selecting on the sheet the ranges that you want to print and then choosing File | Print Area | Set Print Area.
    

6. Click the Close button to close the Print Preview. 

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Clear Print Area

If you don't want to restrict printing to your Print Area all the time, you need to clear out those cell references. There is an easy way!

1. From the menu select  File  |  Print Area  |  Clear Print Area . You did it!
    
2. Click on the Print Preview button to see that the whole sheet will print next time.