Excel Printing Problem
 

Under an old version of Excel (2007??) I used to be able to print A5 size. Since I installed Excel 2019 I have been unable to do this. I cannot find A5 as a printing option - in fact from what I remember of the old version there were many more options than in the current version.

Does anyone know of a way around this?

The printer options offered (paper size, colours, staples, double sided etc) are determined by the currently selected printer. If your selected printer doesn't offer A5 printing it won't be in the list. What printer do you have selected at the moment?

PDR

beat me to it :)

I am using an Epson XP-900 which has A5 paper in it and the setting is confirmed as A5.

What I cannot do, which I could on the old version of Excel, is select the print area as A5. Under "Page Layout" I used to be able to select A5 and it would outline the pages with dotted lines. I can highlight what I want to print, and it does show the dotted lines even though A5 is not an option under "Page Layout - Size".

When I print this selection it misses out most of Column A.

I just had a look at my Excel version, but the only place I can select a paper size is in the Print dialog, and this is linked to the printer driver as PDR1 already mentioned. The dialogs for Page Setup and Set Print Area and such are from Excel, the Print dialog is mostly dependant on the printer driver.

One thing that may have happened, apart from your switch to a newer Excel version, is a Windows update. Did you perhaps also change the Windows environment to a newer version? Even though the printer may be the same, a change to another Windows version may have driven a change to another printer driver in the background.

Can you select A5 paper when you print from a native Windows application? You could try opening your browser (use Internet Explorer or Edge) and printing a page from that.

The printer seems quite happy that it is set up for A5, but I cannot find a way to select A5 on Excel, Word or Edge on my laptop.

Not quite sure that I understand the problem but I've just had a quick look at Excel 2016 which I use. There is an option to set page size (and orientation) which offers A5 under the Page Layout tab, even though my printer is not set up for A5. And at the print dialog there are options that let me select A5 as the page size and multiple choices of layout.

Are you using Office 365 - iI have no experience of it and it may be different?

Not having Office 2019 (just Office 2016) I can't reproduce your problem. My Excel 2016 and 2010 both allow me to select A5 paper size (with any of several printer drivers), plus a very large selection besides.

I wonder if you have got a combination of scaling and margins set that prevents A5 being presented as a legitimate / possible size in Excel.

Can you select A5 with a different printer driver - e.g. CutePDF?

I am not using Office 365 - but Excel 2019 from Office.
The dialogues you describe are what I was familiar with on my old version of Excel. The current one shows only Letter, A4, 4" x 6", 3.5" x 5" and Postcard.
I will try CutePDF tomorrow.

Thank you for the answers and suggestions.

Do the other office applications (eg word or powerpoint) suffer the same problem in their print dialogues?

PDR

Sounds odd. I have 2019 so just went to look. Under the 'size' tab it offers A5.
Edit: if you change your default printer to one of the soft print options, does that change anything?

OK here are some answers to the questions.

It is exactly the same in Excel and Word - I haven't used Powerpoint in this version.

CutePDF initially offers A5 as an option, but it disappears when I actually try to print.

Mr Optimistic - what do you mean by soft print options? If you mean the other options below my default printer, such as "Microsoft Print to PDF", then the answer is No none of them have A5 as an option.

Yep, that is what I wondered. Uninstall and reinstall the printer perhaps? A5 was an option here on print to PDF. If you look at printer properties in word does everything look ok? You haven't got fit to A4 or something set ?

I use Office 365 and have the ability to select A5 on my printer at home too. How many printers have you actually got installed (see Settings>Devices>printers & scanners)? The reason I ask is that I found this on a Microsoft forum

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....24da8932b7.png

I guess another thing to check is which driver are you actually using, the OEM driver or Microsoft's own generic driver, better to use the OEM driver if you have it IMHO.

I definitely only have one printer showing. I think the best thing I can do is a re-install tomorrow.

Thanks for the replies.

The problem seems to have gone away, but I am not exactly sure how! I deleted the printer using "Remove Device" under Settings. I was then able to select A5 in Excel.
I went back to Settings and the printer was still there. Maybe it was there twice with only one showing?? Anyway it is now happily printing A5.
Thank you for all the suggestions.

If in doubt blame Windows updates.

To save me opening a new thread:

I have an Excel worksheet for personal banking. The copy of Excel I use has been going for ten years. For some reason it will not now go past £9999.99. When I calculate to a sum more than that it comes up with #####. It used to calculate with five figures so why not now?

Try making the column wider?

You find out something new every day. I will now be able to enter my big lottery win.

Thanks