How do you unlock the print area in Excel?

For printing specified ranges only, you can set print areas (Page Layout > Print Area > Set Print Area) in Excel. In some cases, you may want to make only print area visible when sharing with your colleagues, how to get it done? In this article, I will intrude several methods to only show print area in a worksheet in Excel.

• Only show print area in Page Break Preview view in Excel
• Only show print area with VBA in Excel
• Only show print area with Kutools for Excel’s Set Scroll Area utility

Only show print area in Page Break Preview view in Excel

When we show a worksheet in the Page Break view with clicking the View > Page Break Preview, non-printing area’s background will be changed to dark gray automatically. See below screen shot:

Note: You can also change to the Page Break Preview view with clicking the Page Break Preview button in the Status Bar.

However, this method will not hide the non-printing area, and you can still view the data in the non-printing area.

One click to hide everything but selected range (hide unused column/rows/cells)

Most of time, we may only use part of worksheet with numeric blank cells/range left. Kutools for Excel’s Set Scroll Area utility can help you one click to hide everything except selected range, or hide all unused cells/rows/column/ranges easily. Full Feature Free Trial 30-day!

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Only show print area with VBA in Excel

To hide non-printing area completely in Excel, you can try VBA macro. And you can do as follows:

Step 1: Press the Alt + F11 keys simultaneously to open the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window.

Step 2: Click Insert > Module, and then paste following VBA code into the module window:

VBA: Only Show Print Area in Current Worksheet

Public Sub HideAllButPrintArea()
Dim xPrintRng As Range
Dim xFirstRng As Range
Dim xLastRng As Range
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
With Application.ActiveSheet
.Cells.EntireColumn.Hidden = False
.Cells.EntireRow.Hidden = False
If .PageSetup.PrintArea <> "" Then
Set xPrintRng = .Range(.PageSetup.PrintArea)
Else
Set xPrintRng = .UsedRange
End If
Set xFirstRng = xPrintRng.Cells(1)
Set xLastRng = xPrintRng.Cells(xPrintRng.Count)
If xFirstRng.Row > 1 Then
.Range(.Cells(1, 1), xFirstRng(-0, 1)).EntireRow.Hidden = True
End If
If xFirstRng.Column > 1 Then
.Range(.Cells(1, 1), xFirstRng(1, 0)).EntireColumn.Hidden = True
End If
If xLastRng.Row < .Rows.Count Then
.Range(xLastRng(2, 1), .Cells(.Rows.Count, 1)).EntireRow.Hidden = True
End If
If xLastRng.Column < .Columns.Count Then
.Range(xLastRng(1, 2), .Cells(1, .Columns.Count)).EntireColumn.Hidden = True
End If
End With
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

Step 3: Press F5 key or click the Run button to run this VBA macro.

Then you will see non-printing area is hidden at once, and only the print area is shown in current worksheet. See below screen shot:

Notes:

1. When there is only one print area in current worksheet, the VBA macro works well.
2. This method does not support undo. To show non-printing area, you have to manually unhide the non-printing area, or apply Kutools for Excel’s Hide > Unhide All Ranges utility.

Only show print area with Kutools for Excel’s Set Scroll Area utility

If you have Kutools for Excel installed, its Set Scroll Area utility will help you only show a print area in current worksheet easily.

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Step 1: Select the print area in current worksheet.

Note: If you can’t find out the print area quickly, you can press F5 key to open the Go To dialog box, select the print area name and click the OK button as below screen shot shown. But this method will select all print areas in current worksheet.

Step 2: Click the Kutools > Show / Hide > Set Scroll Area.

Then you will see only the selected print area is shown in current worksheet at once as below screen shot shown:

Notes:

1. Kutools for Excel’s Set Scroll Area supports undo, and you can press the Ctrl + Z keys simultaneously to show hidden non-printing area.
2. You can click Kutools > Show / Hide > Unhide All Ranges to show hidden non-printing area immediatelly.

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Demo: only show print area in a worksheet in Excel

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