How to Set the Print Area in Excel: Step-by-Step (2024)

Printing Excel sheets can be tricky for some users.

When you click the print button, Excel prints the entire worksheet by default, even the parts that you don’t need 😩

But with the Print Area feature in Excel, you can define areas of your sheet for printing so that when you print, Excel only prints that area 🖨️

This tutorial will walk you through how to set the Print Area in Excel, step by step 😊

Download this free sample workbook so you can practice in real time.

How to set the print area in Excel

Most times, we only want to print a part of our Excel worksheet, not its entirety.

To do that, we need to first define or set a print area ☝

A print area is one or more ranges of cells in your sheet that you designate to print when you don’t want to print your entire worksheet.

So that when you click print after you set the print area, only the print area is printed 😊

Open your practice workbook and let’s set up our print area.

1. Select the cell range you want to print.

2. Go to the Page Layout Tab.
3. In the Page Setup group, click the Print Area button.

4. Click Set Print Area from the options.

That’s it! You’ve already defined or set a print area in your sheet 😀

Once set, a faint gray line appears around that cell range.

When you press Ctrl + P on your keyboard, you’ll get a print preview 👀

This shows you that only the print area you’ve set will be printed.

Each print area will print as a separate page.

Say you forgot to select other cells that should be included in your print area. What do you do about it? 🤔

Well, you don’t have to repeat the steps above.

Just add cells to your existing print area in a few clicks. Learn more about it below 👇

Add cells to your existing print area

You can expand the print area by adding adjacent cells to your existing print area in Excel.

Take note that only adjacent cells can be added to it.

If the cells you add aren’t adjacent to the print area, Excel creates a new print area for those cells.

Let’s do it 💪

1. Select the cells that you want to add to the existing print area.

It could be a row or a column as long as it’s adjacent.

2. Go to Page Layout Tab.
3. Click Print Area in the Page Setup group.
4. Select Add to Print Area option.

You can see the additional cells added to the existing print area when you print preview or select page break preview 😀

How to set multiple print areas in Excel

You can set multiple print areas in Excel if you have other data tables or reports in the same sheet that you want to print.

This saves you a lot of time because you don’t have to set the print areas one by one and print them one by one 😀

It’s super easy, too. It follows the same steps when you set a single print area.

Only this time, you select multiple print areas.

1. Select the first range you want to set as a print area.

2. Hold down the Ctrl key and select more cells that you want to set.

3. Go to the Page Layout tab.
4. Click Print Area in the Page Setup group.
5. Click Set Print Area.

Done! Multiple print areas are now set, each one representing its own page.

You can see all the print areas you’ve set so you can make sure they’re the ones you want.

To do that, click the View tab and click Page Break Preview in the Workbook Views group.

Here are all the print areas in your workbook.

When you save your workbook, these print areas will be saved as well.

How to remove the print area

You can remove the print area in your Excel sheets in three (3) easy steps 👍

If your worksheet contains multiple print areas, clearing a print area removes all the print areas on your worksheet.

1. Go to Page Layout Tab.
2. In the Page Setup group, click Print Area.
3. Select Clear Print Area.

Easy as 1-2-3!

That’s it – Now what?

Printing your sheets can sometimes be tricky. But now that you know how to set the Print Area in Excel, you can print your sheets better 🖨️

With the Print Area feature in Excel, you can print what’s only necessary to save your limited resources–paper, time, and effort 😊

There are still so many amazing things that Excel can do that you might not know of. You can always get better at Excel by learning more and practicing more.

Learn Excel in an easy, simple, and practical way.

Sign up for my Excel Intermediate Training where you’ll learn advanced Excel functions like IF, SUMIF, and VLOOKUP (and more) for FREE 🚀

Other resources

Ready to print your Excel sheets and workbooks? Read our article on How to Print an Excel Spreadsheet on One Page (+ More).

Make your workbook look professional when you print them by inserting Headers and Footers.

Need help in Excel? Contact us here. We’re always happy to help 🤗

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