Page Layout view

[tompgh]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

Does anyone find the Page Layout View of any use. It doesn't even come close to the final page output.

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

Does anyone find the Page Layout View of any use. It doesn't even come close
to the final page output.

While I rarely print out XL spreadsheets any more, when i need to print,
Page Layout View is flawless.

 

[tompgh]

Flawless is pretty good.

For me, page layout view on the mac doesn't predict the printed output in any way close to how it does in Excel for the PC, or even in any way that's useful. I see an image of a sheet, but not how the printed page will look. If "show page breaks" is checked, it shows dotted outlines within the sheet. Of course, upon printing, the dotted lines become page breaks. If I could post an image of this, the problem would be completely clear.

Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks,
Tom...

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Flawless is pretty good.

For me, page layout view on the mac doesn't predict the printed output in any
way close to how it does in Excel for the PC, or even in any way that's
useful. I see an image of a sheet, but not how the printed page will look. If
"show page breaks" is checked, it shows dotted outlines within the sheet. Of
course, upon printing, the dotted lines become page breaks. If I could post
an image of this, the problem would be completely clear.

Am I doing something wrong?

Apparently -

Page Layout view doesn't display dotted outlines - it displays full
pages, with margins, headers and footers.

The dotted lines only show up in Normal view.

It's not surprising that going from Mac to PC or vice versa produces
different printouts. It has to do with different font and printer
metrics - and shows up from Mac to Mac or PC to PC, too.

To make printouts as similar as possible, make sure you use fonts that
came with Microsoft Office (which will be nearly identical across
platforms). Use standard sizes, too.

In addition, using the same print drivers on both platforms is critical
- XL uses them to lay out the printed and Print Layout copy.

 

[tompgh]

Can anyone provide constructive help? Page Layout View appears as I described in my previous post, with dotted page breaks visible and not at all like the printed page.

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

Can anyone provide constructive help? Page Layout View appears as I described
in my previous post, with dotted page breaks visible and not at all like the
printed page.

If that is the case, you are NOT using page layout view as J.E. proposed. It
is impossible to provide any constructive help when your description is
unclear and ambiguous. In Excel 2008, page layout view is the normal
default, and is obtained by pressing the double page icon in the lower left
of the worksheet.

 

[tompgh]

There is nothing ambiguous in my statements. It may not be easy to visualize or even believe, but it's clearly visible and is a problem. Can I send you a screenshot?

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

There is nothing ambiguous in my statements. It may not be easy to visualize
or even believe, but it's clearly visible and is a problem. Can I send you a
screenshot?

yes

 

[JE McGimpsey]

There is nothing ambiguous in my statements. It may not be easy to visualize
or even believe, but it's clearly visible and is a problem. Can I send you a
screenshot?

That should be interesting - please send me a screenshot.

 

[tompgh]

I hope so. To what E-mail address?

 

[JE McGimpsey]

I hope so. To what E-mail address?

Were you intending to reply to me, rather than to your own message?

If so, use the address I'm posting from (i.e., in the message header).

If not, please ignore...

 

[tompgh]

OK. I replied to the E-mail message with screenshots embedded.

 

[tompgh]

Did you get my E-mail message? Any reply?

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Did you get my E-mail message? Any reply?

You're replying to your own original post. Who are you asking?

 

[tompgh]

I replied to the E-mail message with screenshots embedded. Did you get the message?

 

[JE McGimpsey]

I replied to the E-mail message with screenshots embedded. Did you get the
message?

I did not get anything from you.

Make sure you send it to

(e-mail address removed)

 

[tompgh]

To your reply:

Hmm...

I can't reproduce your situation, unless I change settings in the Print
dialog - e.g, fit to 1 page wide, etc. - in which case the Page Layout view
will reflect the changes when I return to XL after dismissing Print Preview.

Normally, XL takes its Page Layout settings from the attached print driver.
Does this occur with other printer(s), if you have them available? Are the
drivers up-to-date?

I've forgotten by now- have you tried trashing your excel and office
preferences (with all Office apps closed), or tried this from a fresh Mac OS
X account?

Response:

I have two printers: Acrobat 9.0 and a new HP OfficeJet Pro. Both have current drivers.

I tried trashing Excel and Office settings files with no change.

Continued troubleshooting places the problem in the files.
- A new file behaves correctly.
- Copying a sheet from an affected to a new file reproduces the error.
- Selecting all cells on a sheet, copying, and pasting to new a file corrects the error.

In Excel 2007 (Windows) on the same Mac via virtual machine, all files behave correctly.

There seems to be something within the file that causes Word for Mac to ignore page breaks in Page Layout view. They display as dotted lines (like in Normal View), but don't generate a page break.

My current plan is to copy all cells in three sheet tabs for every file to new files and go from there.

Any other ideas?

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Continued troubleshooting places the problem in the files.
- A new file behaves correctly.
- Copying a sheet from an affected to a new file reproduces the error.
- Selecting all cells on a sheet, copying, and pasting to new a file corrects
the error.

In Excel 2007 (Windows) on the same Mac via virtual machine, all files behave
correctly.

There seems to be something within the file that causes Word for Mac to
ignore page breaks in Page Layout view. They display as dotted lines (like in
Normal View), but don't generate a page break.

My current plan is to copy all cells in three sheet tabs for every file to
new files and go from there.

The only other thing I can suggest is that you might try opening one
file with XL07, dirty the file (make an entry, then delete - not undo -
it), then do a Save As.

Make sure you save it in the .xlsx format - that *should* get rid of any
existing corruption.

If the problems still exist, copy and paste is probably faster and
easier than continued troubleshooting.