The Report That Must Print Cleanly
An analyst has a worksheet 60 rows long and 9 columns wide. They need to print it for a meeting. On print preview, columns spill onto a second page and the last 10 rows land on a third page with no column headings, so the reader cannot tell what the numbers mean. The sheet also has gridlines that do not print, and a title in row 1 that appears only on page 1. The printer is set to A4 portrait.
1. List the print settings to change so the data fits and stays readable across pages.
Read the worked answer
- Orientation: switch to Landscape to fit 9 columns. 2) Scaling: use 'Fit Sheet on One Page' or 'Fit All Columns on One Page' (beware shrinking too far - check preview legibility). 3) Print Titles: set rows to repeat at top (
$1:$1) so the title and headings appear on every page. 4) Page breaks: insert a manual break so rows split at a sensible boundary. 5) Gridlines: enable 'Print gridlines' in Page Setup if borders are not applied. The judgement is balancing fit-to-page against readability - over-shrinking to one page can make text unreadable.
2. The analyst sets 'Fit to 1 page wide by 1 page tall' and the text becomes tiny. What is the better compromise?
Read the worked answer
Use 'Fit to 1 page wide by blank/auto tall' so width is constrained but rows flow onto as many pages as needed at a readable size. Combined with repeating row 1 as a print title, each page keeps its headings. Alternatively reduce margins and set a smaller but legible font, or split into two logical print areas. The principle: fit the dimension that must not split (columns), let the other dimension paginate, rather than forcing everything onto one sheet at the cost of legibility.