it's long been an issue where you go to print something from excel and the print preview shows blank. I've noticed that if I select multiple pages it still shows as one page attempting to print (i.e. I cannot scroll through the sheets at preview).

This indicates that there is an issue with the system print function within Excel.

I have been able to reestablish this connection by opening a different file (than the one that "prints blank") and going to the print function on that document. It generally works so I follow through by either printing or making a PDF version of the file.

Once that is done I go back to the file that was previously printing blanks and it works.

I'll note that none of the suggested solutions worked for me on the help page. Also, I'm an Office 365 user and this problem still persists.

I hope this helps.

I noticed this problem for a long time now and I found a way to reproduce it as follow. It is clearly an Excel bug that corrupts the file.

1. Open a virgin file, add a second tab (sheet2) if not already there and save the file as and xlsb file (binary).


2. On sheet2, define a print area in which your enter something.


3. Open VB Project and set up visible property of sheet1 to xlSheetVeryHidden.


4. Save the file, close it and reopen it.

When you try to print sheet2, the print preview shows a blank page. See the file TestError1 attached. The bug only appears only if the 1st tab (sheet1) is setup with xlSheetVeryHidden, not any sheet.

There is also another way to reproduce the bug with xlSheetHidden if the file is saved by macro within the event Workbook_BeforeClose in which sheets1 is activated after having been setup to visible=xlSheetHidden. See File TestError2 attached.

Other configurations leads to this bug, see file Test Error Blank Page.

When this bug occurs, the blank page is not the only symptom as you will notice that it is
- Impossible insert new sheet
- Impossible to copy cells to another workbook with this message "this command can not be used on multiple selections."
- Impossible to move the sheets in the tab bar
- Impossible to delete sheets (only by macros)

So the problem is a combination of 3 things : visible property, sheet activation and the way the file is saved (manually or by macro). Hope this will help to resolve the bug which occurs with any version of Excel later then Office 2016 on any OSX but not on PC nor with Mac Office 2011.

I want to start page numbering at page 7 and have entered that number in Page Setup>>First Page Number.

It shows correctly in Page Layout but when I print or open in Preview it starts at Page 1.

I've found a work-around.

In Page Setup >> Page, set First page number to Auto. Then go to Page Setup >> Header/Footer and click Custom Footer. Click in any section (Left, Centre, Right) and then select the icon: Insert page number. This adds &[Page] to the section, then type '+6 ' (plus, number, space), where the number is 1 less than the starting page number you want, ie 6 will mean the first page is 7. For some reason the space after the number is important, otherwise it doesn't work. Click OK twice to get back to your spreadsheet.

This will only correct the page numbering when printing (or creating a pdf) as Page Layout shows starting number as 13 (in my example above).

I don't know if this is already possible..RE: printing..
I would like to be able to print multiple "sets" of columns on each page... 1) this would decrease paper usage 2) the viewer of the report could see 2x (or more) of the data without flipping the page.
EX: I have a list of 250 rows that are four small columns. I would like to have the first, say, 50 rows appear with the 4 columns of 1-25 rows on left side and some space and then the 26-50 four-column rows next to the first set of rows...or if the print was small enough, print 3 sets of columns on each page...

so the page would PRINT like this:

aaa 111 ~~~ ddd 111 ~~~ ggg 111 ~~~

bbb 111 ~~~ eee 111 ~~~ hhh 111 ~~~
ccc 111 ~~~ f f f 111 ~~~ 111 ~~~

Even though the rows appear in excel like:
aaa 111 ~~~
bbb 111 ~~~
ccc 111 ~~~
ddd 111 ~~~
eee 111 ~~~
f f f 111 ~~~
etc...

I suggest you make the weight of the printed gridlines very light so that they are more comparable to those shown on the worksheet screen. They would then be more like guidelines, and any borderlines included in the worksheet would show. My former 2008 version of Excel for Mac was like I propose.

The current setup prints regular borders around every cell obscuring any regular borders used within the worksheet. I tried using Borders rather than the gridlines, but nothing was as light as the old setup. It would be much easier to have light printed gridlines and use Borders if darker printed gridlines are desired.