Size to Fit in Excel

[Jacamina]

I have Excel 2002 and I am having trouble getting my columns to size to fit when printing.  Eventhough in the spreadsheet it looks fine, when I click on preview or print, what I have entered into the cells overlap.  How do I correct this problem?  I know it has to do with the set-up.

[Rob Pomeroy]

Unfortunately there isn't a satisfactory way of doing this (other than trial and error).  The print preview should reasonably faithfully reproduce what will be printed, but it is not foolproof.  The trouble is each printer has its own idea about how to lay out pages.  Laser printers are the worst.  And the print engine rarely communicates these thoughts back to Windows.  So when you do "resize to fit" this really means "resize to fit for viewing onscreen", and doesn't relate to how things will print.

For a quick way of getting things about right: make everything one point size bigger (font size) than you want it to be.  Then resize to fit.  Then reduce the font size by one, leaving the column sizes as they are.

[soybean]

Well, Preview gives you an opportunity to set your margins for printing before you actually print.  You can display margins by clicking on the Margins button, and then you can drag margins with your mouse in your Preview panel.  Going to the Setup panel from Preview also lets you change margins.  And, keep in mind, Landscape may be a better choice and Portrait for some spreadsheets.  Also note that once you've opened a Preview panel and closed it, Excel shows, in dashed lines, where the print margins fall.  Those lines can also be helpful in adjusting your columns for printing.

[Rob Pomeroy]

I think the OP was talking about column width though - you know, where an oversized number column for example will print '#######' instead of its real contents.  Very annoying.