Poor fit-to-page printouts

[Blue Max]

How come cell contents become non-printable when the printout is fit to the
page? We have worksheets that display and print fine at 100%, but print
poorly when fit to the page. In fact, the problem is evident in the print
preview
even before printing. Shouldn't the program simply reduce all elements so
they
will print as in normal mode only smaller?

For example, in one sheet we have a column of phone numbers formatted with
the special format for phone numbers. The column is plenty wide and
contains
more blank space per cell, including the contents, than many other cells.
Notwithstanding, the phone numbers all print as asterisks (*), indicating
the content won't fit in the designated cell, when the printout is forced to
scale the printout to one page.

This problem is most frustrating since it appears that the worksheet is
well-designed and should print fine. Any thoughts or suggestions on how to
properly print our worksheets when reduced to fit the page?

 

[Ms-Exl-Learner]

I think you have to clear the unwanted spaces from the phone number data.
Have a Look at Trim Function for the same.

If this post helps, Click Yes!

 

[Blue Max]

Thank you for the reply, but I don't really understand the recommendation.
The phone numbers do not have any unwanted spaces. They are simply put in
as a series of 10 numbers and the built-in-format formats the number with
the area code between parens, a space between the area code and prefix, and
a hyphen between the prefix and 4-digit number.

As such, there are no unwanted spaces or other characters in the cell
contents. Furthermore, we are not sure how this would affect printing.
Text in cells and narrative in text boxes print fine with all sorts of
characters, including spaces.

Please clarify.

*******************

 

[macropod]

Hi Blue Max,

Excel's wysiwig capabilities at different zoom factors (print or view) are not entirely consistent - even changing the view zoom
factor can have similar effects on the display to what you're experiencing with the print.

On that basis, though, here's a possible workaround: After setting the zoom factor for the 'fit to page' result, try zooming the
active window to the same or marginally smaller percentage scaling, then adjusting the column widths to suit that scale.

 

[Blue Max]

Thank you macropod. I appreciate the possible work-around. However, this
obviously does not eliminate the frustration associated with such problems.
What is so hard about printing a scaled drawing that prints fine at 100
percent? It seems that if all the elements are scaled equally then
everything should print the same at the new size. Furthermore, this case is
especially perplexing since the column width for the phone numbers already
provides a huge degree of extra blank space compared to many other columns
that print without any problem.

Thanks,

Richard

******************

Hi Blue Max,

Excel's wysiwig capabilities at different zoom factors (print or view) are
not entirely consistent - even changing the view zoom factor can have
similar effects on the display to what you're experiencing with the print.

On that basis, though, here's a possible workaround: After setting the
zoom factor for the 'fit to page' result, try zooming the active window to
the same or marginally smaller percentage scaling, then adjusting the
column widths to suit that scale.


--
Cheers
macropod
[Microsoft MVP - Word]

Thank you for the reply, but I don't really understand the
recommendation. The phone numbers do not have any unwanted spaces. They
are simply put in as a series of 10 numbers and the built-in-format
formats the number with the area code between parens, a space between the
area code and prefix, and a hyphen between the prefix and 4-digit number.

As such, there are no unwanted spaces or other characters in the cell
contents. Furthermore, we are not sure how this would affect printing.
Text in cells and narrative in text boxes print fine with all sorts of
characters, including spaces.

Please clarify.

*******************

 

[Ed Ferrero]

Hi Blue Max,

Excel printing can be problematic because Excel talks to your printer driver
to render the page. Not everyone has the same printer drivers, so not
everyone gets the same results.

Here are a couple of things to try;

Make sure you are using True Type fonts. These have a T in front of the font
name in the format dialog.

In the print dialog, click Properties. You will be taken to your printer
properties. The exact dialog looks different for each
printer, but in general...
- if there is an option to send True Type fonts as bitmaps, make sure
this is disabled
- there should be an option to use True Type fonts or printer fonts, try
one then the other to see what works (TT is usually better)

Finally, try changing the printer to Microsoft XPS Document Writer. Then
check if the print preview is substantially different from your normal
printer. If it is, you may need to download a new printer driver.

Ed Ferrero
www.edferrero.com

 

[macropod]

hi Ed,

Outputting to PDF might also be an option. Even if scaling for the page fit with the PDF doesn't produce the desired results,
printing to PDF with a cutom page size that matches the print area of the worksheet will allow a PDF reader software to
automatically re-scale the output for whatever paper size the file is printed to.

 

[Blue Max]

Thank you for your suggestions Ed. We will try several of these and see
what happens. I guess after so long we justifiably get a little frustrated.
After so many years when will wysiwyg finally really become wysiwyg?

Thanks

**********************