COMPUTER APPLICATIONS II (DCC206)

WEEK 3
EXCEL LECTURE 3

BY: MR F. NDLANGAMANDLA
E C O T: C I V I L E N G I N E E R I N G D E PA R T M E N T
Chapter 9: Printing your work
Many worksheets that you develop with excel will end up as hard-copy or soft-copy (portable
document format) reports
This is achieved through printing excel worksheets and the necessary printing controls will be
discussed
Basic printing
One of the printing option is to use quick print option (choose file then click print followed by
the print button on the print pane)
You can add a new button to the quick access toolbar to allow one click printing
a) Clicking the quick print button prints the current worksheet on the currently selected printer
(physical or pdf) using the default print settings
b) If default settings were changed, excel uses the new settings
The following are excel default print settings:
a) Prints the active worksheet (or all selected worksheets), including any embedded
charts or objects
b) Prints one copy
c) Prints the entire active worksheet
 Basic printing
c) Prints in portrait mode
d) Doesn’t scale the printed output
e) Uses letter-size paper with 0.75-inch margins for the top and bottom and 0.70-inch margins
for the left and right margins (for the U.S. version)
f) Prints with no headers or footers
g) Doesn’t print cell comments
h) Prints with no cell gridlines
i) For wide worksheets that span multiple pages, prints down and then over
Basic printing
Excel only prints the active area of the worksheet (cells that contain data)
If the worksheet contains any embedded charts or graphic objects, they are also printed
Basic printing: Changing your page view
Page layout view shows your worksheet divided into pages (you can visually size printed output
while working)
Page Layout view is one of three worksheet views, which are controlled by the three icons on
the right side of the status bar
The three worksheet views:
a) Normal: The default view of the worksheet. This view may or may not show page breaks
b) Page Layout: Shows individual pages.
c) Page Break Preview: Allows you to manually adjust page breaks.
Basic printing: Normal view
Most of the time when you work in Excel, you use Normal view.
Normal view can display page breaks in the worksheet (indicated by horizontal and vertical
dotted lines)
These page break lines adjust automatically if you:
a) change the page orientation
b) add or delete rows or columns
c) change row heights
d) change column widths
Basic printing: Page layout view
Page Layout view is the ultimate print preview
Unlike the preview in Backstage view, this mode is not a view-only mode. You have complete
access to all Excel commands.
you can use Page Layout view all the time if you like.
Basic printing: Page break preview
Page Break Preview displays the worksheet and the page breaks.
This view mode is different from Normal view mode with page breaks turned on
The key difference is that you can drag the page breaks
unlike Page Layout view Page Break Preview does not display headers and footers.
Basic printing: Page break preview
When you enter Page Break Preview, Excel performs the following:
a) Changes the zoom factor so that you can see more of the worksheet.
b) Displays the page numbers overlaid on the pages.
c) Displays the current print range with a white background; nonprinting data appears with a
gray background.
d) Displays all page breaks as draggable dashed lines
When you change the page breaks by dragging, Excel automatically adjusts the scaling so
that the information fits on the pages, per your specifications.
Basic printing: Adjusting common page setup settings
Clicking the Quick Print button may produce acceptable results in many cases, but a little
tweaking of the print settings can often improve your printed reports.
You can adjust print settings in three places:
a) The Print settings screen in Backstage view, displayed when you choose File-Print.
b) The Page Layout tab of the Ribbon.
c) The Page Setup dialog box, displayed when you click the dialog launcher in the lower-right
corner of the Page Layout ➪ Page Setup group on the Ribbon.
You can also access the Page Setup dialog box from the Print settings screen in Backstage view
Basic printing: Choosing your printer
To switch to a different printer or output device, choose File ➪ Print, and use the dropdown
control in the Printer section to select a different installed printer.
Basic printing: Specifying what you want to print
Sometimes you may want to print only a part of the worksheet rather than the entire active
area
You may also want to reprint selected pages of a report without printing all the pages. Choose
File ➪ Print, and use the controls in the Settings section to specify what to print
There are several print options:
a) Print Active Sheets: Prints the active sheet or sheets that you selected.. If you select multiple
sheets, Excel begins printing each sheet on a new page
b) Print Entire Workbook: Prints the entire workbook, including chart sheets.
c) Print Selection: Prints only the range that you selected before choosing File ➪ Print.
Basic printing: Specifying what you want to print
d) Print Selected Chart: Appears only if a chart is selected. If this option is chosen, only the
chart will be printed.
e) Print Selected Table: Appears only if the cell pointer is within a table (created by choosing
Insert ➪ Tables ➪ Table) when the Print Setting screen is displayed. If this option is chosen,
only the table will be printed.
If your printed output uses multiple pages, you can select which pages to print by indicating
the number of the first and last pages to print by using Pages controls in the Settings section.
You can either use the spinner controls or type the page numbers in the edit boxes.
Basic printing: Changing page orientation
Page orientation refers to the way output is printed on the page.
a) Portrait to print tall pages (the default) or
b) Landscape to print wide pages
Landscape orientation is useful when you have a wide range that doesn’t fit on a vertically
oriented page.
If you change the orientation, the onscreen page breaks adjust automatically to accommodate
the new paper orientation.
Page orientation settings are also available when you choose File ➪ Print.
Basic printing: Specifying paper size, printing multiple copies of a report
It may be necessary to change or specify the page size of your report (depending on data size
to be printed)
Choose Page Layout ➪ Page Setup ➪ Size to specify the paper size you’re using.
a) The paper size settings are also available when you choose File ➪ Print.
It may be necessary to print more than one copy of the excel report
Use the Copies control at the top of the Print tab in Backstage View to specify the number of
copies to print.
a) Just enter the number of copies you want and then click Print.
Basic printing: Adjusting page margins
Margins are the unprinted areas along the sides, top, and bottom of a printed page.
a) Excel provides four “quick margin” settings; you can also specify the exact margin size you
require
- Page Layout ➪ Page Setup ➪ Margins drop-down list (normal, wide, narrow and custom)
b) You can also set the margins on the “Page layout view” using the ruler
- Drag ruler above column header (for sides) and to the left of the row header (for top/ bottom)
All printed pages have the same margins, you can’t specify different margins for different
pages.
Basic printing: Understanding page breaks
When printing lengthy reports, controlling where pages break is often important.
Excel handles page breaks automatically, but sometimes you may want to force a page break
(either a vertical or a horizontal one) so that the report prints the way you want.
a) To insert a horizontal page break line, move the cell pointer to the cell that will begin the
new page. Make sure that you place the pointer in column A
b) To insert a vertical page break line, move the cell pointer to the cell that will begin the new
page. In this case, though, make sure to place the pointer in row 1
c) To insert a vertical page break and a horizontal page break simultaneously, move the cell
pointer to the cell where you want page breaks to intersect
Basic printing: Preventing certain cells from being printed
You may want to print the worksheet but leave out some parts
You can use several techniques to prevent certain parts of a worksheet from printing:
a) Hide rows or columns. When you hide rows or columns, the hidden rows or columns aren’t
printed.
b) You can hide cells or ranges by making the text color the same color as the background color.
Be aware, however, that this method may not work for all printers.
c) Mask an area. You can mask a confidential area of a worksheet by covering it with a
rectangle Shape. You’ll probably want to adjust the fill color to match the cell background
and remove the border.
Basic printing: Creating PDF files
The PDF file format is widely used as a way to present information in a read-only manner, with
precise control over the layout.
If you need to share your work with someone who doesn’t have Excel, creating a PDF is often a
good solution.
Free software to display PDFs is available from a number of sources.
To save a worksheet in PDF or XPS format, choose File ➪ Export ➪ Create PDF/XPS Document
➪ Create a PDF/XPS. Excel displays its Publish as PDF or XPS dialog box, in which you can specify
a filename and location and set some other options.
End of PART I (excel) of Computer Applications II
Our next class is a tutorial on all content covered for excel (prepare questions for assistance/
clarification)
Assessment method for PART I of Computer Applications II will be communicated during
tutorial session
Students are advised to install AutoCAD (2013 or better) on personal computers (preparation
for next PART II (AutoCAD) of Computer Applications II)