Forum Discussion
Unable to remove print area from Excel worksheet
I found a solution to this and posting in case it helps anyone. In my case, my page setup was set to 100% of actual size. Once I changed this to "Fit to 1 page" it allowed me to set a custom print area. I'm guessing if it's set to 100% it won't allow it to shrink to the area you are trying to print on a page.
Would be nice for Microsoft to change this setting automatically whey you try to set a custom print area instead of just not working.
idarow It's strange that you can not clear the current print area. But, I trust it is like that for you. Or you perhaps have multiple sheets selected? I have read that this can also cause issues with clearing print areas.
In stead of trying to clear a print area that is wrong, you can perhaps select the entire sheet and set that as the new print area. This should over-ride the previous print area.
- I do not have multiple sheets selected.
I tried your advice and selected the entire sheet as the print area, but I still had the dotted lines where Excel broke the sheet into printable pages.
Again, I was unable to clear this via the standard method.
What I finally did was COPY the entire sheet>
Opened a new sheet>
Selected the same range of cells as the original>
PASTE without formatting (WINDOWS KEY + V)
This did the trick. I suspect something was just messed up (or as computer people say, "corrupt") in that original sheet. In any case, I'm up and running.
Thank you all for your responses.I found a solution to this and posting in case it helps anyone. In my case, my page setup was set to 100% of actual size. Once I changed this to "Fit to 1 page" it allowed me to set a custom print area. I'm guessing if it's set to 100% it won't allow it to shrink to the area you are trying to print on a page.
Would be nice for Microsoft to change this setting automatically whey you try to set a custom print area instead of just not working.njdesign27 this fix recently helped me, since I believe we were in the same situation: My Page Setup area in the Page Layout section of the Ribbon did not work. I found that Excel can't set or get page setup properties if a printer is not specified. To prevent this problem from occurring, install a printer driver on your computer.
Once I selected a printer, I was able to manipulate the page layout. Thanks!
Riny_van_Eekelen ...or you can select the entire sheet, click on [Page Layout], then click on [Breaks] then [Remove Page Break].
- EXCELLENT! This one worked.
Riny_van_Eekelen I selected the entire worksheet then set the print area. Unfortunately, this did not clear the print area that I was trying unsuccessfully to reset.
