7 Common Excel Printing Problems and How to Fix Them
How many papers have you thrown in the bin after seeing what the printer churned out? Encountering problems while printing in Excel is frustrating—sometimes, it’s even more infuriating if you don’t know why it shows that problem.
Throwing your printer out your office window won’t solve the issue, but finding out the cause and dealing with it will. So, we’ll cover seven of the most common printing problems you might experience when printing with Excel and how to solve them.
1. “We Didn’t Find Anything to Print” Error
If the ExcelPrint Previewisn’t showing you what you intend to print or you see a “We didn’t find anything to print” message in thePrint Preview, that’s usually because you’ve accidentally set the wrong print area.
Here’s how to fix this issue:
If you want to printa portion of your worksheet:
If you want to print your current worksheet:
But it’s best to select a print area and choosePrint Selectionin thePrint Previewbecause it can alsofix the issue of Excel printing blank pages.
2. Your Printed Excel Sheet Is Too Small
In Excel’sPrint Preview, there’s a scaling option underSettings. If the contents of the Excel worksheet appear too small in print, that means the Excel worksheet is scaled to fit into a single page.
3. Excel Borders Not Printing
Excel does not print borders (gridlines) by default. Here’s how to change the settings to print gridlines in Excel:
4. Incorrect Page Orientation
If you don’t set the correct page orientation, some columns (or rows) might shift to the next page in print. You should selectLandscapeorientation if you’ve got a worksheet with more columns than rows. Conversely,Portraitorientation is better for worksheets having more rows and fewer columns.
There are various ways tochange page orientation in Excel. Let’s learn two of them:
Method 1: Set Page Orientation in Excel Worksheet
Method 2: Set Page Orientation in Excel Print Preview
5. “Margins Do Not Fit Page Size.” Error
If thePrint Previewdisplays the “Margins do not fit page size.” message, that usually means Excel cannot figure out the scaling of your worksheet. That commonly occurs if you have a printer driver that uses the XML Paper Specification (XPS) PageScaling feature.
To avoid getting this error, you can either change the printer driver (and use one that doesn’t use the XPS PageScaling feature) or set the scale manually by following the steps below.
6. Column Width Is Different in Print
Sometimes, ExcelPrint Previewwill show a different column width from what you see. This usually occurs when using proportional fonts with varying widths for different characters, such as Times New Roman, Georgia, and Arial. There are two ways to fix this error.
Change the Fonts
Changing to non-proportional (monospaced) fonts like Courier New, Prestige Elite, Fixedsys, and ProFont will fix the issue. To change the fonts:
Manually Adjust the Columns
In the Excel worksheet:
7. The Print Area Option Is Gray
ThePrint Areaoption is available in thePage Layouttab’sPage Setupsection. YourPrint Areaoption is gray (i.e., you cannot select it), most likely because you grouped multiple worksheets or saved the Excel file with grouped worksheets.
it’s possible to solve this issue by ungrouping the worksheets. There are two ways to ungroup the worksheets:
Fix Your Microsoft Excel Printing Problems
Now that you know some of the common printing issues in Excel and how to solve them, it’s possible to ensure that your workday goes smoothly.
Of course, there’s more to printing your spreadsheets than just problems. So, if you want to make the most out of printing Excel spreadsheets, you should familiarize yourself with most, if not all, of its features.
Printing in Excel can be more complicated than you might think. Learn how to prepare for printing an Excel spreadsheet.
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