Previewing Pages in Excel 2007 with Print Preview

Save wasted paper and your sanity by using the Print Preview feature in Excel 2007 before you print any worksheet, section of worksheet, or entire workbook. You can use Print Preview to see exactly how the worksheet data will be paged when printed and to make last-minute changes to the page settings before sending the report to the printer.

1

Click the Office Button and then point to the arrow beside the Print option.

The Print options appear in the right pane of the Office button menu.

2

Click the Print Preview command.

Excel displays the first page of the report with its own Print Preview contextual tab. Notice that you can barely read its contents. When positioned over the worksheet, the mouse pointer becomes a magnifying glass.

3

Click the Zoom button on the Print Preview tab (or click the previewed page with the magnifying glass pointer).

The previewed worksheet displays at 100% zoom so you can see the details. After you enlarge a page to actual size, you can use the scroll bars or the arrow keys to bring new parts of the page into view in the Print Preview window.

4

To return to the full-page view, click the mouse pointer on the page or click the Zoom command button on the Print Preview tab.

Excel indicates the number of pages in a report on the Status bar of the Print Preview window. If your report has more than one page, view pages that follow by clicking the Next Page button in the Preview group of the Print Preview tab. To review a page you’ve already seen, click the Previous Page button.

5

Click the Close Print Preview button to return to the previous view.

You can also choose to modify the page setup or print directly from the Print Preview tab by using the buttons in the Print group.

If you use Print Preview frequently, you can add a Print Preview button to the Quick Access toolbar. Click the Customize Quick Access Toolbar button and then click Print Preview on its drop-down menu. (To remove the button, you simply click the Print Preview option on this drop-down menu a second time.)

Comments (5)

  1. Posted by James Went
    I have found that the Print Preview in Excel 2007 is definitely not WYSIWYG. For example, charts scaled to fit A4 sheets in previous versions of Excel will print at a reduced size using Excel 2007, even though the Print Preview shows them fitting the page perfectly! Many people seem to be experiencing this problem but (as far as I know) there is no "fix".
  2. Posted by Carol
    I'm having a problem with the worksheet not being wysiwyg. I'm trying to print off a worksheet including a chart (that I've had a real problem printing in black & white so that I can pass out copies) and the grayscale colors change a lot from the screen version to the print preview version. Ugh!
  3. Posted by Henry Stewart
    As far as I'm concerned what is printed above is rubbish! Print Preview produces an image that fills about half the screen and cannot be zoomed at all iunless there's some devious method that Microsoft have devised and are keeping a secret. The zoom button sown in image 3 above is greyed out therefore is useless and the zoom slider at the bottom right of the screen is also deacitivated. How do you zoom Print Preview in 2007, it was dead easy in 2003?
  4. Posted by 4ndyman
    @Hnery: I don't know what's wrong with your installation of Excel. My print preview zooms just fine. In fact, my cursor is a little magnifying glass.

    @Carol and James: I don't print much, and I rarely work with charts, but try this: Click the Office button and choose Excel Options. On the left, click Advanced. The third section down is "Print," and it has only one option: "High Quality Mode for Graphics." If that's on, turn it off; if it's off, turn it on. Then click OK.

    Then try printing (and print preview) again and see if it makes a difference. This is probably a problem with dpi vs. ppi. Also check for graphics settings in your printer's control dialog box.
  5. Posted by 4ndyman
    Also -- go to your Print Preview and click the Page Setup button. Play around with the Print Quality settings on the Page tab. Then try going to the Sheet tab and selecting the Black and White option and see what happens to your preview and then to your print.

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