When you’re working in a spreadsheet, you may find yourself wanting to print the finished file. Perhaps you want a vertical orientation, or a wider, landscape style. Fortunately, Excel makes it easy to choose either one. Let’s learn how to use layouts in Microsoft Excel.
How to Use Layouts in Excel
Printed pages take two basic forms. Vertically-oriented layouts are called portrait style. Wider, horizontal layouts are called landscape. Before making a choice for your spreadsheet design, it helps to consider the content you have on your sheet.
If you have many rows but few columns, portrait layouts fit the most data onto a single page. Wider, shorter datasets will naturally benefit from landscape designs. Whichever option you choose, Microsoft Excel makes it easy to apply.
Imagine that you want to change the layout of your Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. To get started, go to the Page Layout tab. You’ll find it on the Insert tab, located on Excel’s ribbon. This menu option gives you a variety of selections to change up the look and feel of your Excel spreadsheet.
To change the layout, find the Orientation dropdown menu. You’ll see two options appear: Portrait and Landscape.
Click on either one to apply it to your sheet, based on how you want the printed version to be arranged.
You’ll see that Excel now shows a thin dotted line on your sheet. This is a visual guide telling you where the margins – or edge – of your printed page will be. In other words, anything across that dotted line will be shifted to a second page in your printout.
You can also verify your Excel layout design by going to File > Print. In the preview window, you’ll see the printed layout displayed.
As you can see, Excel makes it easy to change the layout of your spreadsheets.
Add-ins in Excel