Microsoft Excel: Use Horizontal Page Breaks Even When You Use Fit To N Pages Wide

Problem: In general, if you use the Fit to N pages option, your manual page breaks are ignored

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As shown in Fig. 1264, the File – Page Setup dialog offers a scaling choice, where you can fit the report to be 1 page wide.

However, when you use this option, Excel 2000 and earlier versions will not display your manual page breaks!

Strategy: There is a workaround.

1) Select the Fit to: scaling option.

2) Do a Print Preview. Close the Print Preview.

3) Go back to File – Page Setup. As shown in Fig. 1265, the Adjust to: option will be filled in with the proper adjustment to force the report to fit to one page wide.

4) Choose the Adjust to option. Your manual page breaks will display correctly.

Gotcha: If you adjust column widths, you will need to repeat these steps.

Summary: The missing manual page break appears to be a bug in Excel 2000 and earlier version. Using the techniques described here, you can overcome the problem.

Commands Discussed: File – Page Setup – Page

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