E-TIPS

Finance, Valuation, Risk & Modelling

your one-partner solution for building skills and knowledge

Change Your Life with Excel A Printing Time Saver

elcome to Change Your Life with Excel.

This month continues the theme of helping to

save you as much time as possible so you can take

longer lunch breaks and even get out of work in time to

watch the Tour De France highlights.

In this edition we have a look at a very simple way to

print multiple ranges within a workbook in one step

(rather than having to select each separate worksheet or

print area). This leads on to Custom Views which can be

particularly useful if you have meddlesome colleagues

who insist on changing your beautiful spreadsheets.

As always, the features covered here are based on Excel

2003 however most can still be found in other versions.

Time Saving Tip

Printing Multiple Ranges in One Go

If you have a workbook with various reports or data in

different worksheets which all need printing out on a

regular basis then this is the time saver just for you.

Normally we might be tempted to go to each separate

worksheet and print out the defined print area. This can

be very time consuming when there are more than just a

few worksheets.

The following techniques allow us to print out all of the

required ranges in one go (nearly!) and even allow us to

print multiple ranges from within the same worksheet.

Firstly we need to spend time setting up all the various

print areas, however this is a one-off exercise. As a

reminder:

• Highlight the area to print

• Select File | Print Area | Set Print Area

• Select File | Page Setup to set portrait, landscape,

number of pages etc

To set up multiple ranges within the same worksheet:

• Highlight the first print area

• Hold the CTRL key and select the 2nd print area

• Repeat for further print areas

• Once all “non-contiguous” areas have been

highlighted select File | Print Area | Set Print Area

Note that each separate non-contiguous area within the

same worksheet will print on a separate page.

Non-contiguous print areas when viewed in Page Break Preview

mode (View | Page Break Preview)

Once all print areas have been defined and the page

settings have been made it is a good idea to save the

workbook.

Now, to print out all the defined print areas at once we

firstly select all the worksheets with the defined print

areas. This is easier to do if all the printable worksheets

are adjacent to each other, in which case:

• Select the first worksheet with a printable area

• Hold the SHIFT key and select the last worksheet

with a printable area

If all the printable worksheets are not adjacent to each

other:

• Select each printable worksheet while holding the

CTRL key

Once the worksheets are selected:

• Select File | Print

• Ensure Active sheets is selected

W

By Leigh Drake Director Arc Business Processes www.arcbusiness.com.au

E-TIPS

Finance, Valuation, Risk & Modelling

your one-partner solution for building skills and knowledge

Select Active sheets in the Print dialog box

• Click OK

All defined print areas within the selected worksheets will

be printed at once.

Secret

Custom Views

Okay, so this tool isn’t exactly a secret but it probably

isn’t used as often as it should be and it leads neatly on

from the previous feature.

Excel’s Custom View tool allows us to define a particular

view for a worksheet which can be quickly switched on

and off, for example we may want to hide certain rows

and columns of data for printing only. Elements which

can be changed using Custom View include:

• Hidden rows and columns

• Print settings

• Print range selection

• Filter settings

• Frozen panes

(Unfortunately cell formatting cannot be changed using

Custom View).

Examples where this tool is particularly useful might be:

• Non-contiguous data needs printing on the same

page (a shortcoming of the previous tip)

• The worksheet is viewed by different users who

only want to see certain data

• Different print areas or print settings are required

for different users (e.g. different headers and

footers)

Consider the non-contiguous ranges selected in the

previous tip which can only be printed on separate

pages. To have these print on the same page using

Custom View:

• Highlight rows 17 to 24 which separate the 2

ranges

• Select Format | Row | Hide

• Set the print area as a single area from A1 to H36

• Select View | Custom Views and choose Add from

the dialog box

• Choose a descriptive name for the view setting

The Add View dialog box

• Click OK

• Unhide the rows

Now whenever we need to print or view the table of data

with the hidden rows:

• Select View | Custom Views

• Select the named view from the list

• Click Show

Many different Custom Views can be set up within the

same worksheet which can easily be selected and

de-selected.

Until next time, happy Excelling.