How To Clear The Print Area In Excel

Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Office 365. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: Clearing the Print Area.

Clearing the Print Area

In other issues of ExcelTips you learn how you can set a print area within a worksheet. This special area is used to define exactly what range you want printed. At some point you may need to delete the print area. (By "delete" I mean to get rid of the special area designation, not the information contained within that area.)

To clear the print area, follow these steps:

Display the Page Setup tab of the ribbon.
In the Page Setup group, click Print Area. Excel displays a menu containing two choices.
Choose Clear Print Area from the menu.

Pretty easy, huh? Well, there are other ways you can go about clearing the print area, as well. This is one that I like to use from time to time:

Make sure the Formulas tab of the ribbon is displayed.
In the Defined Names group, click Name Manager. Excel displays the Name Manager. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Name Manager.

Look in the list of defined names for one called Print_Area. This is the definition of your print area. (If you don't see an entry by this name, there is no print area defined in your workbook.)
Select the Print_Area entry and click on Delete. The entry is removed, and your print area is now deleted.
Click on Close to close the Name Manager.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (10002) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Office 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Clearing the Print Area.

Author Bio

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Checking for Time Input

Need to know if a cell contains a time value? Excel doesn't contain an intrinsic worksheet function to answer the ...

Discover More

Pasting Clean Text

One of the most helpful tools in Word is the ability to paste straight text into a document. This is used so much on my ...

Discover More

Create a Template that Stops Styles from Being Added to a Document

Limiting which styles a user can use or add to a document can be a tricky task. Fortunately, Word has advanced to the ...

Discover More

More ExcelTips (ribbon)

Printing Multiple Selections

Need to print several portions of a worksheet all on a single piece of paper? Here's an easy way you can get what you ...

Discover More

Copying Print Areas when Copying Worksheets

Print areas are a great way to define what, exactly, you want to print from a worksheet. When you copy worksheets, the ...

Discover More

Locking the Print Area

Excel allows you to specify an area of your worksheet that should be printed. Here's how to "lock" that area so it cannot ...

Discover More