Excel 2007’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 and 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 and then Landscape.
Excel offers three ways of changing the margins. The first is to click on the Margins button and choose one of the presets. Here, you’ll find four options: the last settings used, normal, wide and 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 is important to realise that there’s a difference between left and right margins and also top and bottom margins. The figure you enter in the left and 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 and only prints complete rows and 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 and drag to the left or right to change the margins. Excel immediately updates the preview of your page and 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 and changing the paper size in this way is often a good solution.
The author is a trainer and developer with Macresource Computer Training, an independent computer training company offering Microsoft Excel 2007 Training Courses in London and throughout the UK.
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