Error Message: Margins do not fit page size

[ceejay11]

I try to change the page setup of nay excel worksheet by changing to landscape and to 1 page wide (plenty of room for the data to fit). It returns the above error message and inserts page breaks at every row and about every 4 columns (regardles of their width) so I end up with over 600 pages.
This is happening for every worksheet.
Other people in my office are not having the same problem and we are attached to the same printer.

 

[Yogi Anand]

Hi Caroline:

Have you looked at VIEW|Page_Break_Preview -- you might find some clues there in what is the problem and how to resolve it. Look for PageBreaks in Page_Break_Preview, and see if you see any thing unusual.

Regards!
Yogi Anand

 

[ceejay11]

Hi Yogi,

Thanks for your reply, unfortunately, there is nothing unusual looking there. I have narrowed it down to something to do with my printer settings because if I use another printer I don't have the problem but I can't work out what. The only thing I can find different is that in Excel Page Setup, the Print Quality field is available for selection but everyone else I have spoken to, this field is greyed out in there Excel.

 

[Yogi Anand]

Hi Caroline:

You might also try reinstalling the printer; may be even delete the printer first and then reinstall it. Good Luck.

Regards!
Yogi Anand

 

[ceejay11]

Yogi,

That worked a treat. Thank you ever so much.

Caroline

 

[Etienne]

Update on this error

We had the same error today.

Rebooting the computer fixed whatever was wrong with the printer driver. This is a quicker fix than reinstalling the printer.

 

[bykerbob]

We started getting these errors as well with Excel 2003. Now I do not claim to be an expert, (just a persistent problem solver), but we did review quite a number of posts to find these two "causes with resolutions." Furthermore, I must add that one of the posts referenced a Microsoft article regarding the first plausible cause, but described the issue as related to Excel 2000, and also indicated there was a hotfix for it. While the solution noted below works, I was reluctant to contact Microsoft for an Excel 2000 hotfix when we were experiencing the error on Excel 2003. With that in mind, here then the two plausible causes/solutions:

1). User has access to more than two printers, one of which is using PostScript (PS) language, and the remaining printers use PCL language
2). User is using Fit to instead of Adjust to on Page Setup.

When the error came up, the simpliest and most expedient solution was to have user cancel the print job and try to print to another PCL language printer. Then check Print View and see if the image is what they expected, and if so, cancel that print job and revert back to the printer they originally selected.

The reason for this error is that PS printers scale and PCL do not. Changing from a PS printer after running a print job, to a PCL printer for another print job leaves Excel thinking it can scale which it could do with PS, and cannot do with PCL, and thus ends up counting each cell as a page, and the user ends up seeing a print job with hundreds if not thousands of pages, when there should only be one to a few pages.

A word of caution here. If the error comes up and you end up with a screen showing hundreds of pages, your only recourse may be to exit Excel, and any unsaved work will be lost. Saving your work before you print is a good habit to have. It would also be a good idea to keep track of where you have been printing spreadsheets. I would even go so far as to suggest that you may want to exit Excel after printing to a PS printer and then reopen Excel to do your work when the printer of choice will be a PCL printer.

The second cause involves changing the Page Setup from Fit to to Adjust to, and indicate the percentage (default is 100%). Even if Fit to is the selection, changing the printer of choice and then changing back will allow you to print out your spreadsheet the way you wanted to do it in the first place, without changing the page setup.