Excel is adding an extra column to my print area, how do I make it stop and get my data to fill to the margins?

Question

When I actually go into print preview, and turn on margins, I even see the little tab for the extra blank column it is inserting. I want the spreadsheet itself to fill to the edges of the margins. The extra column is making my margin too big, and my font too small. I am carefully painting over only the cells I want when I set the print area, I know I am not grabbing an extra column!

Answer 1

Excel version???



Excel adds an extra column, because your data does not fit the entirely page. To change this, you have these options:



OPTION1: Center the data on the page

• Open the PAGE SETUP dialog box

EXCEL 2003: From the menu bar choose FILE >> PAGE SETUP

EXCEL 2007/2010: From the Ribbon choose the PAGE LAYOUT tab. On the PAGE SETUP group click the small arrow in the lower-right corner of a group,

• Choose the MARGINS tab

• At the bottom Under the CENTER ON PAGE group, mark/check the boxes before HORIZONTALLY and VERTICALLY

• Click OK

Now print and the extra column wont exist and your document will be center on the page



OPTION2: Change your columns width to fill the page width

• Excel 2003: http://spreadsheets.about.com/od/excelformatting/ss/widen_col.htm

• Excel 2007/2010: http://spreadsheets.about.com/od/excelformatting/ss/2007-09-06-change-column-widths-excel-2007.htm



OPTION3: Change your margins width

Excel 2003: http://www.jegsworks.com/Lessons/numbers/basics/step-margins.htm

Excel 2007/2010 http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-change-the-print-margins-in-excel-2007.html



OPTION 4: Change your font size

EXCEL 2003: http://office.microsoft.com/en-ca/excel-help/change-the-font-or-font-size-HP001190641.aspx

EXCEL 2010: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/change-the-font-or-font-size-in-excel-HP001216423.aspx

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-change-excel-2010s-default-font-and-font-si.html

Answer 2

If your data is anything like my experiment, the last column really isn't a column but it appears to be one by looking at the tabs at the top of the print preview. There are several ways to fill the page better and you can use a larger font, make wider columns, or you can change settings in the Print Preview to change how the document will look.



You can adjust the % of normal size, changing it until you get what you want. Along with this you can centre the print area horizontally and vertically. Combining all of these can give you the optimal result for your print area.

Answer 3

Excel 2007 Print Area

Answer 4

On the "Page Layout" tab, go to the "Scale To Fit" section and increase the percentage from 100% to 110%. Try a page preview. Adjust as necessary.



After you get the print area to fill up the page, you could also try going to the "Page Layout" - "Page Setup" window. Look on the "Margins" tab. There are two check boxes for centering the print area on the page.

Answer 5

1. Click the pagelayout tab on the ribbon 2. Highlight with your mouse the areas in columns A thru D that you want to print (just drag your mouse around the entire area to get it highlighted). Then press the CTRL key and while holding the CTRL key go over to the G and H areas and highlight with your mouse the areas you want printed there. You need to continue to hold your CTRL key while you are highlighting. The purpose of the CTRL key is to insure two things: 1) that areas in A thru D remain highlighted 2) E and F are avoided 3. Let go of CTRL key once it's highlighted 4. Look straight up where the "page setup" group is and click the "Print area" button. When you click it you'll see two options: "set print area" and "clear print area". Select "set print area" 5. Print area is set and now when you print, the print area should print off 6. To clear these print areas, you click the "Print area" button again and this time you select "clear print area" (where in step 4 you clicked "set print area")