How to print in Excel: page setup, print titles and PDF

In short: on the Page Layout tab, set Orientation to Landscape, choose what goes on paper with Print Area, and under Print Titles enter $1:$1 in Rows to repeat at top. Fit to 1 page wide keeps every column on the same page.

Try it now

Below is the top of an order list with eight columns. Fill in the dialog the way you would in Excel so the whole list prints readably.

Task The order list is eight columns wide and really about 300 rows long. Set up the printout like this: landscape, all columns side by side on one page width, as many pages down as it takes, and the headers from row 1 on every page.

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H
1	Order	Region	Sales rep	Item	Qty	Price	Revenue	Status
2	A-1041	North	E. Clark	Office chair	12	189	2268	Delivered
3	A-1042	South	O. Hughes	Desk	4	649	2596	Open
4	A-1043	West	P. Shah	Binders (pack)	30	24	720	Delivered
5	A-1044	East	M. Brooks	Mobile pedestal	8	329	2632	Open
6	A-1045	North	E. Clark	Desk lamp	15	59	885	Delivered
7	A-1046	South	O. Hughes	Meeting table	2	1290	2580	Open

Set a print area

Often you only want the table on paper, not the helper columns and notes next to it.

1. Select the cells you want to print.
2. Go to Page Layout > Page Setup group > Print Area > Set Print Area.

The print area is saved with the workbook. To add more cells, use Print Area > Add to Print Area. Print areas that are not next to each other each print on a page of their own. To start over, click anywhere on the sheet and choose Clear Print Area, which removes every print area on that sheet.

The gray grid on screen is just a guide. It only shows up on paper when you check Gridlines on the Sheet tab of the Page Setup dialog.

Task For the budget meeting, print only the table with its total row, not the internal notes in column G. The table has no borders, but on paper the cells should still be separated by lines. Row numbers and column letters should not appear on the printout.

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G
1	Department	Budget	Actual	Variance	Owner		Notes (internal)
2	Sales	48000	45200	-2800	J. Turner		Trade fair still open
3	Marketing	36000	38900	2900	R. Patel		Q4 invoice missing
4	HR	22000	19800	-2200	S. Morgan		do not share
5	IT	61000	60100	-900	D. Kim
6	Purchasing	15000	16400	1400	L. Foster
7	Admin	27000	26500	-500	C. Reed
8	Total	209000	206900	-2100

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Landscape and fit to one page

Switch between Portrait and Landscape under Page Layout > Page Setup > Orientation. The setting belongs to the current sheet, so each sheet can have its own.

To stop a column from spilling onto an extra page, go to the Scale to Fit group on the Page Layout tab, set Width to 1 page and leave Height on Automatic. The same setting lives in the Page Setup dialog, which you open with the small launcher in the corner of the Page Setup group: on the Page tab, under Scaling, pick Fit to and enter the pages.

Fit to	What you get	Use it for
1 page(s) wide by, tall empty	all columns side by side, as many pages down as needed	long lists
1 page(s) wide by 1 tall	the whole sheet on exactly one page	short reports, forms
No scaling	normal size, spread over as many pages as needed	wide overviews with print titles

Fitting a sheet onto one page sounds handy, but Excel shrinks everything to get there, and 300 rows on one sheet of paper are unreadable. Excel never stretches data to fill a page either. To undo scaling, go to File > Print and pick No Scaling under Settings.

Repeat the header row on every page

Without headers, nobody on page 2 knows which number belongs to which column. Print titles fix that:

1. Go to Page Layout > Page Setup group > Print Titles.
2. On the Sheet tab, click into Rows to repeat at top and then click row number 1 on the sheet. Excel fills in $1:$1.
3. For two header rows, use $1:$2.
4. For wide lists that run across several pages, enter $A:$A or similar in Columns to repeat at left, so the names also appear on the right-hand pages.

Task The overtime overview is 13 columns wide and meant for 60 people. Print it at normal size, so across several pages side by side and top to bottom, without shrinking. Every page should show the months at the top and the names on the left.

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M
1	Overtime	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
2	Grace Evans	4	6	3	5	2	0	1	3	7	5	4	8
3	Daniel Price	2	1	0	3	4	2	0	1	2	3	5	6
4	Aisha Khan	8	7	9	6	5	4	2	3	6	7	9	10
5	Tom Walsh	0	2	1	1	3	2	0	0	2	1	4	3
6	Lucy Ward	5	4	6	3	2	1	0	2	4	5	6	7

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Print titles only affect paper and PDF. To keep headers visible while you scroll on screen, use Freeze Panes.

Insert, move and remove page breaks

To see where each page ends, go to View > Page Break Preview. Dashed lines are automatic breaks, solid lines are the ones you set.

• Insert: select the row below where the new page should start (or the column to its right) and choose Page Layout > Breaks > Insert Page Break.
• Move: drag the line in Page Break Preview. Moving an automatic break turns it into a manual one.
• Remove: select the row below the break and choose Breaks > Remove Page Break. Reset All Page Breaks clears every manual break at once.

View > Normal takes you back to the usual view.

Headers and footers

Choose Insert > Header & Footer. Excel switches to Page Layout view. Click the left, center or right box at the top or bottom and type. The Header & Footer Elements group adds Page Number, File Name or Current Date, which Excel fills in when it prints. View > Normal gets you back.

To give several sheets the same header, select the sheets first and use the Header/Footer tab of the Page Setup dialog with Custom Header.

Save an Excel sheet as PDF

1. Set up print area, orientation and scaling first. The PDF uses the same settings.
2. Choose File > Save a Copy (Save As in older versions).
3. In Save as type, pick PDF (*.pdf).
4. Under Options, choose in Publish what which part of the workbook goes into the PDF. Ignore print areas exports the whole sheet instead of the print area.

Standard gives print quality, Minimum size a smaller file for email.

Common printing problems

One column ends up alone on the last page

The list is slightly too wide. Landscape plus Fit to 1 page wide solves it.

Everything fits on one page, but the text is tiny

The tall box is set to 1 on a long list. Clear it, and Excel uses as many pages down as needed.

Your page break is ignored

With Fit to switched on, Excel ignores manual page breaks. Change the scaling if you want to place the breaks yourself.

The print title boxes are grayed out

When several sheets are selected, Rows to repeat at top and Columns to repeat at left are unavailable, so ungroup the sheets. Print Titles is also dimmed while you are editing a cell or have a chart selected on the sheet.

Letter or A4?

The US and Canada print on Letter, the UK and most other countries on A4, which is a little narrower and longer. A sheet that fits one size can spill onto an extra page on the other, so check the paper size on the first tab of Page Setup.

Page setup in German Excel

English	German
Page Layout > Page Setup	Seitenlayout > Seite einrichten
Print Area > Set Print Area	Druckbereich > Druckbereich festlegen
Orientation: Portrait / Landscape	Ausrichtung: Hochformat / Querformat
Fit to: 1 page(s) wide by	Anpassen: 1 Seite(n) breit
Print Titles, Rows to repeat at top	Drucktitel, Wiederholungszeilen oben
Columns to repeat at left	Wiederholungsspalten links
Gridlines	Gitternetzlinien
Page Break Preview, Insert Page Break	Umbruchvorschau, Seitenumbruch einfügen
Ignore print areas	Druckbereiche ignorieren

Which Excel versions can do this?

Print areas, orientation, Fit to, print titles and page breaks are in Excel 2016, 2019, 2021, 2024 and Microsoft 365. On a Mac, print titles work the same way through Page Layout > Print Titles, and page breaks through Page Layout > Breaks. According to Microsoft, Excel for the web currently cannot repeat headers on every page, fit a sheet to one page or add page breaks, so open the file in the desktop app for those.

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