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AIBU?

people using 'set print area' on an excel spreadsheet

205 replies

thecolonelbumminganugget · 17/09/2016 11:22

It annoys me so much I have to leave my desk and make a cup of tea to calm down everytime someone emails me a spreadsheet where they've done this!

There is no justification for this. Either:

A - you have set the important information to print and everything else is backing information. In which case you need two tabs, one with the summary, the other with the backing so anyone who wants to can trace it through but the important information is summarised on the front sheet. Or;

B - it's all equally important but YOU only needed to print part of it. In which case either select cells and use print selected or use clear print area before you save it in a shared location or forward it on. If it is the case that the bit you needed to print is the same bit everyone else will need then I refer you to point A above.

All that happens is that you send it on, the recipient prints it to read, or worse still when they've added their own work to it and printed it, the bit they wanted didn't print because it's not in the print area you dictated, they throw it in the bin, swear at you behind your back and have to go back to their desk, clear print area, and print it again.

I know I'm not being unreasonable when I say the only reason to do this is because you hate everyone you work with!

(Oh god that feels better)

OP posts:
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WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeG0es · 17/09/2016 11:25

Or the person receiving it uses print preview before wasting their ink and paper?

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thecolonelbumminganugget · 17/09/2016 11:27

Yep. Fair enough Grin

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Davinaaddict · 17/09/2016 11:41

Well I hate it when people don't use it, and I press print, only to get reams of blank pages or pages with empty cells printer off. So YABU Grin

And yes, I should print preview first too, but sometimes I forget Smile

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StatisticallyChallenged · 17/09/2016 11:45

It's often entirely necessary - especially if the person you're sending it too is technologically illiterate and wouldn't be able to work out how to only print the relevant areas. Having multiple backing tabs often creates extra work if you have a workbook which requires regular updating too.

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YelloDraw · 17/09/2016 11:46

Review on screen not on paper... :-) You can zoom in nicely then as well

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OhtoblazeswithElvira · 17/09/2016 11:47

What Davina said.

Also did you need to print it in the first place?

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MiamiBound · 17/09/2016 11:53

surely you would print preview before you print? or set your view to page break preview and adjust as required?

I say this as a qualified Microsoft Master Instructor, and Excel expert

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thecolonelbumminganugget · 17/09/2016 12:05

I do print preview to get the information onto an appropriate number of pages, it's only when you then look for the bit you wanted on the printed page and it's not there that you realise.

I can't believe you're not all piling in to agree with me and nominate me for a obe for services to pointing out human folly.

I'm flouncing off now...

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JulietteL · 17/09/2016 12:12

I hate it when people DON'T use it - especially when they send me the spreadsheet to print off and review! It just forces me to sort the print area before printing, wasting my time!!

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DadDadDad · 17/09/2016 12:58

YABU and I agree with all those saying you should always print preview. It's annoying when people send spreadsheets that spill over 19 pages when you print.

It would be great to see more Excel-related AIBUs although I accept that they may be a bit specialist. (I think I'm the second actuary to reply to this thread!)

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Nightmanagerfan · 17/09/2016 13:00

I hate it when people don't do it! And just use print preview

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wasonthelist · 17/09/2016 13:03

YANBU but the fact so many people use feckin spreadsheets for feckin everything is more annoying. 99% of the feckin stupid spreadsheets at work don't even need to exist.

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ComputerUserNotTrained · 17/09/2016 13:17

People just saving a workbook with zero regard for which cell is currently highlighted.

In almost all cases you should click into cell A1 on the first sheet before saving.

I think Excel should work like games, where you unlock features once you've mastered certain tasks. That would prevent the infuriating habit many people have of pointlessly merging cells.

These things give me the rage and yes I should get out more.

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StatisticallyChallenged · 17/09/2016 13:21

Having spent hours last week trying to recreate data because some silly cunt had managed to apply a filter and then sort the first column of data only (i.e. sorted the names a-z but left the data where it was) I agree re levels of excel mastery.

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ComputerUserNotTrained · 17/09/2016 13:22

Oh God that's appalling Angry

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AWhistlingWoman · 17/09/2016 13:27

Statistically Wine

ComputerUser I'm with you.

I usually set it up because people moan when I don't. Or end up printing off reams of data or empty cells. Can't please all the people all the time. Goes off to go and create more pointless spreadsheets. All with print areas set and saved at A1.

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MargotsDevil · 17/09/2016 13:32

I now remove the data needing shared to a word document and save as a pdf Smile

I've found it has saved hours of trying to explain...

Far too excited at having found an excel thread

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StatisticallyChallenged · 17/09/2016 13:32

Honestly, the pain this caused was unbearable. I had old versions but the problem was that they'd done it multiple times over the period of a week, and there had also been changes to the data (required changes not errors) so we couldn't just revert to an old version either as it was really hard to work our when it had first happened.

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tibbawyrots · 17/09/2016 13:35

Creeps out of thread

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StatisticallyChallenged · 17/09/2016 13:35

I wish I could PDF this stuff, and it might come to that but it generates from other sheets which update very frequently so it's easier to keep it as excel. But I may well macro and pdf it very soon!

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ComputerUserNotTrained · 17/09/2016 13:36

Margot that's a very good idea, and one I'll be using myself.

I work with people who use calculators to add up columns. Every day is painful.

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StatisticallyChallenged · 17/09/2016 13:37

I work with someone who asked for carbon paper because they needed to complete two copies of a form which was stored in excel...they had a printer and a computer, but were printing out the blank form and filling in by hand. Twice. Hence request for carbon paper.

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thecolonelbumminganugget · 17/09/2016 13:41

... flounces back... I'm not talking about print formatting, that's a different thing. I'm not a monster!

It's having a print area set to a specific part of a sheet so that information around it doesn't print. I agree about the print preview thing but it's not always easy to tell from the preview pane for example that someone has set the last two lines not to print because they weren't interested in that bit

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StatisticallyChallenged · 17/09/2016 13:53

Nope, I still need to set print area! There's columns of data I want on the same sheet (for maintenance, updates and accessibility) but don't want printed as the print offs are used for a specific purpose.

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wasonthelist · 17/09/2016 13:59

Anything business critical - or even vaguely important shouldn't be getting done by passing feckin spreadsheets about to each other.

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