Page Setup In Microsoft Excel Classes
Microsoft Excel’s page formatting features are accessed by clicking on the page layout tab of the Excel ribbon. When working with page formatting you may also find it useful to enter page layout mode by clicking on the page layout button in the status bar. Adjust the zoom as required & you now have a constantly updated preview of how your document will look when it prints out.
Excel also displays the number of pages required to print a document on the status bar. Some worksheets would probably benefit from changing the orientation to landscape. This often enables you to fit all the columns onto a single page. To change the orientation choose Orientation & then Landscape.
Excel offers three ways of changing the margins. The first is to click on the Margins button & choose one of the presets. Here you’ll find four options the last settings used normal wide & narrow. One of these settings may well be ideal for your data. If not the second method of modifying margins is to enter custom settings. This is done by choosing Custom Margins in the Margins drop down menu.
When entering margin settings in this window it important to realise that there’s a difference between left & right margins & also top & bottom margins. The figure you enter in the left & top boxes will be faithfully reproduced by Excel. So for example if we set the left margin to 3 cm you will have precisely 3 cm on the left-hand margin. However because Excel never prints a fragment of a row or a fragment of a column & only prints complete rows & columns the figure you enter on the right will be the minimum margin rather than a figure which Excel can faithfully reproduce each time. And the same applies to the bottom margin setting.
The third method of modifying margins is perhaps the best of all. It’s also the most interactive. Simply position the cursor on the left of the ruler & drag to the left or right to change the margins. Excel immediately updates the preview of your page & shows you the actual margin setting. You can continue dragging until you are happy with the margins.
Another simple way of changing the way in which your data will print is to change the paper size. In many cases you can reduce the number of pages required by using A3 paper instead of A4. Naturally it’s only possible to change the paper size in this way if you have a printer capable of handling that paper size. If you output most of your documents to PDF paper size will not be a problem & changing the paper size in this way is often a good solution.
The author is trainer & developer with Macresource Computer Training an independent computer training company offering Microsoft Excel 2007 Classes in London & throughout the UK.
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