In this article we will show you how to print from Google Sheets both with and without gridlines.
Google Sheets offers several options when printing.
For the purpose of this demonstration an example workbook has been created to show how to use the various options available when printing in Google Sheets. Click here to access this and follow along at home.
In your selected sheet access the print menu by clicking on File followed by Print. This can also be accessed by using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + P (Windows) or Cmd + P (Mac).
Note that if you are aiming to print a specific selection of cells you must ensure this selection is highlighted at this point.
If you want to print the current selected sheet or the entire workbook there is no requirement to select any data.
The print options screen will now appear. In the left hand side of the screen is a preview of the content to be printed. To the right is the print menu.
You can select the selection to be included in the print. To do this click the drop down menu underneath the Print label on the print menu. This will give the following options:
Current Sheet: Prints only the sheet that is selected when accessing the print options.
Workbook: Shows the option to print all of the workbook or just specific sheets. When this option is selected a further drop down menu will appear labelled Selection, clicking this will allow you to tick to select the specific sheets in the workbook.
By default this will be set to print all sheets in the workbook.
Selected Cells: Prints the cells that were selected earlier (if applicable).
In our example we will choose to print the current sheet.
This option can be changed via the drop down menu labelled Paper size. By default this is set to A4 (21.0cm x 29.7cm) however the drop down menu offers a variety of different sizes including the option to define a custom paper size.
For our example we will ensure the A4 (21.0cm x 29.7cm) option is selected as this is the most standard.
There are two page orientation options to choose from: Landscape and Portrait. Choose the option that best suits your data or requirements.
The Scale will be set to Normal (100%) by default, by selecting the drop down menu underneath the Scale label on the print menu you can change this to Fit to width, fit to height, fit to page or even to a custom percentage.
We will leave this set to Normal (100%) for our example.
Underneath the Margins label the drop down menu offers the choice to change the Margins of the document. You can set the margins to various options including Normal, Narrow, Wide or even specify custom numbers.
This feature is especially useful as it gives you full control over the margins of all four sides.
Clicking on SET CUSTOM PAGE BREAKS will display a window that gives the option to split your data across multiple pages on a custom basis by dragging the split lines to the desired breakpoint and selecting CONFIRM BREAKS.
In the Formatting section of the print options menu there is a checkbox that is labelled Show grid lines. If this box is checked the grid lines will display in the print. For our example we will choose not to show grid lines and therefore will leave the checkbox unchecked.
The content can be aligned to various parts of the page. To do this use the drop down menus labelled Alignment. Here we can set the horizontal and vertical alignment to position the content in various parts of the page. In our example we will change this to be top-left.
Under the Headers and footers label you will see several checkboxes. If checked these will display on your printed results.
In the example we will choose to display the Page numbers, Workbook title, sheet name and the current time. As can be seen this is reflected in the preview.
There is also an option to set custom fields in this section allowing custom text to be inserted into the header or footer areas. Simply enter your custom text in the available area and select confirm in the top right hand corner of the screen.
Above the print options menu click the next button, this will open your operating systems print window. Ensure the correct printer is selected and click print. Your document will be printed.
Related Articles:
- How to print selected cells
- Print gridlines in Google Sheets
- How to print labels
- Print address labels
