Three different ways for printing a selected area

Excel 2016
Excel provides three easy ways to print chosen ranges: print the selection, define the print area in the Page Setup dialog, or create the print area. The first two methods work well for occasional printing but, if you need to print a specific range or ranges of worksheet frequently, defining one or multiple areas to print, significantly reduce the efforts. Moreover, with print areas, you can easily add new ranges to the current selection.
Print preview 1 in Excel 365   or   Print preview 2 in Excel 365

Select cells to print

The easiest way to print a range of cells is to select cells you want to print and on the Print tab, in the Settings group, in the Print Area dropdown list, select Print Selection:

Print Selection in Excel 365

Excel will print the selected area of the spreadsheet, for example:

Print preview 1 in Excel 365

Define the print area in the Page Setup dialog

The advanced way allows to add column headers or/and labels to the selected area is to define the print area in the Page Setup dialog:

   1.   On the Page Layout tab, in the Page Setup group, click Print Titles:

Print Titles button in Excel 365

   2.   In the Page Setup dialog box, on the Sheet tab, in the Print area field:

Page Setup dialog box in Excel 365
  • Enter the range of cells you want to print or
  • Click on the arrow and then in the Page Setup - Print area dialog box, select the range of cells you want to print, for example:
    Page Setup - Print area in Excel 365

    After selecting the print area, click Enter or click the arrow in the Page Setup - Print area dialog box:

    Print preview 2 in Excel 365

    See Print column headers or spreadsheet labels on every page for more details.

Create the Print Area in Excel

This way is useful when you have several different ranges of cells you want to print. When you save your workbook, the Print Area of your workbook is saved as well.

   1.   Select the range of cells you want to print.

   2.   On the Page Layout tab, in the Page Setup group, click on the Print Area dropdown list:

Print Area in the Page Setup group in Excel 365

   3.   In the Print Area dropdown list, click Set Print Area:

Set Print Area in Excel 365

   4.   Select the second range of cells:

Set Print Area example in Excel 365

On the Page Layout tab, in the Page Setup group, in the Print Area dropdown list, select Add Print Area:

Add to Print Area in Excel 365

For this example:

Add to Print Area example in Excel 365

Notes:

  • If you click Clear Print Area on the Page Layout tab, in the Page Setup group, in the Print Area dropdown list, Excel removes all the print areas on your worksheet.
  • If you want to see all Print Areas in your workbook, select (enter the first letters and then select) Print_Area in the Name Box:
    Print_Area example in Excel 365

    Excel highlights all areas that had been added to the Print Area.

See also this tip in French: Trois façons différentes d'imprimer une zone sélectionnée.

Please, disable AdBlock and reload the page to continue

Today, 30% of our visitors use Ad-Block to block ads.We understand your pain with ads, but without ads, we won't be able to provide you with free content soon. If you need our content for work or study, please support our efforts and disable AdBlock for our site. As you will see, we have a lot of helpful information to share.