Excel allows us multiple and various options for preparing our data for printing. We can change the layout of the data that will be printed, define the size of the paper, etc.
One of the options that are also available and useful is to print only the visible data. In the text below, we will show how to do it.
Print Visible Data with Go To Special
For our example, we will use the list of NBA players, and their statistics from one night, including points, rebounds, assists, and turnovers:
Now we will hide a certain row or column. In our case, it will be a column for points, and we will hide the row where Kyrie Irving is located. We will simply click on the column for points, then right-click and choose Hide as an option:
We will repeat the same step for the row in which Kyrie is located, and this will be our table:
To make sure that we only select the visible cells, we will go to the Home tab >> Editing, and choose Go To Special from Find & Replace:
From the window that appears, we will choose Visible cells only:
When we click OK, we will notice that only the visible cells are selected and that the empty row and column are marked with white lines:
Now, when we go to File >> Print, we will notice that only the visible cells will be chosen for printing:
What is great about Excel 2016 and newer versions (Office 365, for example) is that it automatically recognizes if there are hidden cells, and proposes not to print them, so we would have to unhide them before printing if we want them shown.
Using Print Selection
One of the most useful tools at our disposal for choosing what to print is Print Selection. With it, we can cherry-pick the columns and rows that we want to print. Suppose that we only want to print only the names and teams of the first five players in the list. We will select these players:
And then go to File >> Print, and choose Print Selection under Print Settings:
And we will simply print the desired range.