This guide will explain how to fix issues when trying to scale your sheet to fit a page during printing.
We will go over several possible reasons why Excel has this issue with scaling your worksheet and will give you a solution for each.
The Scale to Fit option is useful when printing out a worksheet with a large number of columns.
Users will find the option to scale their work in the Page Layout settings, under the Scale to Fit group.
Let’s take a look at a quick example of a situation where you may need to use the Scale to Fit option.
Suppose you have monthly sales data for an entire year. Each month is given its own column, leading your worksheet to have at least 12 columns.
You want to print out this table for an upcoming meeting, but you want to ensure that all twelve columns fit on the same page.
In the Scale to Fit options, you can set your width to ‘1 page’. This will ensure that every column in your worksheet fits on a single page. You may also have to change the output’s page orientation from portrait to landscape to fit a larger number of columns.
Your Scale to Fit options may not work for several reasons.
There may be page breaks within your dataset that prevent you from printing all columns on the same page.
You may also have to adjust the scaling options manually in the Page Setup dialog box. Later in this guide, we will show you what options you must fix to ensure that Excel scales your work properly.
Now that we have a grasp on when to use the Scale to Fit function, let’s learn how to use it and work on an actual sample spreadsheet.
A Real Example of Scaling a Worksheet to Print in Excel
The following section provides several examples of how to use this function. We will also go into detail about the formulas and tools used in these examples.
First, let’s take a look at a real example of the function being used in an Excel spreadsheet.
We have a spreadsheet of actual and target sales for several products. We want to print this table without cutting off any columns.
In the Print menu, we can find the Fit Sheet on One Page option to ensure that your worksheet fits within the bounds of your printing area.
Do you want to take a closer look at our examples? You can make your own copy of the spreadsheet above using the link attached below.
Try to print our sample spreadsheet and see if you can print it out on a single page. If you’re ready to try out our solutions to fix the Scale to Fit feature, head over to the next section to read our step-by-step breakdown on how to do it!
How to Fix Print Scale to Fit Not Working in Excel
This section will guide you through each step needed to fix the issue where you can’t scale your Excel sheet to fit a single page when printing.
You’ll learn how we can modify Page Layout options to ensure that your target Excel table can fit on a single page.
Follow these steps to fix the Scale to Fit issue when printing:
- In the Page Layout tab, click on the Breaks option. Select the option Reset All Page Breaks from the dropdown menu. This should remove all page breaks from your current spreadsheet.
<div class=”pk-content-block pk-block-border-all” style=”text-align: center;”></div> - Next, let’s adjust the scaling settings for printing. In the Page Layout tab, expand the dropdown menu for Width and select the 1 page option.
<div class=”pk-content-block pk-block-border-all” style=”text-align: center;”></div> - We can access more page setup options for printing by clicking on the icon seen below in the Page Layout.
<div class=”pk-content-block pk-block-border-all” style=”text-align: center;”></div> - In the Page tab, select Landcape as the page orientation.
<div class=”pk-content-block pk-block-border-all” style=”text-align: center;”></div> - If you’ve done all the prior steps correctly, your spreadsheet should now be scaled to fit a single page.
These are all the steps needed to set up your Page Layout settings to fit your entire worksheet on a single printed page.
This step-by-step guide should be all you need to fix print scale to fit in Excel.
We’ve shown you how to make adjustments in the Page Setup menu to ensure that your spreadsheet prints all columns on a single page. We’ve also shown how to remove any page breaks in your sheet that may be causing the issue.
This function is just one example of the many Excel functions that you can use in your spreadsheets. Our website offers hundreds of other functions and methods to help you get more out of Microsoft Excel.
For example, you can read our guide on how to fix a worksheet that does not save as a CSV. With so many other Excel functions available, you can find one appropriate for your use case.
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