Question

Print set of rows together

Asked by: amit_g

Is there a way to keep some contiguous rows together while printing in Excel? We want to keep the rows in such a way that either all of those print to current page or all of those print to next page i.e. the page break should not separate those rows. We already have overall PrintArea setup to fit the columns in one page width and let Excel decide the page breaks.

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Asked On
2008-01-23 at 11:41:06ID23105574
Tags

Microsoft

,

Excel

,

2003

Topics

Microsoft Office Suite

,

Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet Software

Participating Experts
3
Points
500
Comments
11

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Answers

 

by: rlistenbPosted on 2008-01-23 at 15:07:20ID: 20728904

Why not just use the page break view and set the breaks where you want them??
Goto VIEW -> PAGE BREAK PREVIEW

 

by: epaclmPosted on 2008-01-23 at 15:16:27ID: 20728980

Would View>Page break review be any good for you?
It allows you to adjust the page breaks manually.

Regards,
Curt

 

by: epaclmPosted on 2008-01-23 at 15:19:51ID: 20729010

I'm too slow, beaten by 9 minutes! But may amit_g is after something automatic anyway?

Curt

 

by: amit_gPosted on 2008-01-23 at 15:20:28ID: 20729019

>>Why not just use the page break view and set the breaks where you want them??

Because I have to do it programatically and I don't know in advance how many rows would each group consist of.

 

by: epaclmPosted on 2008-01-23 at 18:46:10ID: 20730168

Couldn't you always add a page break before the group of rows with
ActiveSheet.HPageBreaks.Add Before:=ActiveCell
That way the group of rows will always start on a new page even if it will sometimes leave a gap on the previous page.

Regards,
Curt

 

by: amit_gPosted on 2008-01-23 at 19:05:28ID: 20730238

No, because usually 3 or 4 such groups fit into one page. If I do so, only one group would print into each page and even thought there would be enough space for at least 2 if not 3 more groups.

 

by: epaclmPosted on 2008-01-23 at 20:50:57ID: 20730714

If you haven't got any case where there are less 3 groups maybe you could add the break after every third group?

 

by: amit_gPosted on 2008-01-24 at 10:50:26ID: 20736005

If it were so easy I would not be asking this here :) I am not a novice and I have also done a through "Googling". When I could not find anything satisfactorily, I have posted it here.

The groups are not static. In fact the report itself is not static, it is generated dynamically and numbers of rows within the group vary. Currently we are doing it a very hard way by counting the number of rows, then deciding if the page break should be put after a group based on how many groups can be fit in a page. That is very cumbersome and error prone and is to be done per report/per group. What I am looking for is to be able to mark some rows as a group in Excel so that it doesn't break it. If there is a way in Excel, we can use Excel automation to do that "marking" from the report generation engine and then we don't have to count the rows in each page per report.

 

by: byundtPosted on 2008-01-24 at 12:51:10ID: 20737267

Amit,
You would think that Excel would make what you are trying to do easy--but it most certainly does not.

In my day job, I produce a routine document that contains a mix of rows with and without vertically merged cells. When Excel determines where the page breaks lie, it looks pretty dumb to have a vertically merged cell print partially on one page and the rest on another. It also looks dumb if an automatic page break puts a section header at the bottom of one page, with the content beginning on the next. I therefore wrote a routine to insert page breaks where they would look better. This routine is called by a Workbook_BeforePrint event sub.

I am posting the code below as an example only. It was written with the peculiarities of one specific workbook and its formatting in mind, and very likely needs modification to suit your circumstances.

Brad

Sub PrettyPageBreaks()
'Sets page breaks to avoid putting the green section header at bottom of page or splitting merged cells
Dim i As Long, j As Long, n As Long, scrollRow As Long, scrollColumn As Long
Dim cel As Range, LastCell As Range, rg As Range, rg1 As Range, rgPrintArea As Range
'On Error GoTo 0
Application.EnableEvents = False
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
With ActiveSheet
    Set rg1 = ActiveCell
    scrollRow = ActiveWindow.scrollRow
    scrollColumn = ActiveWindow.scrollColumn
    Set rgPrintArea = Intersect(.Range(.PageSetup.PrintArea), .UsedRange)
    
    .ResetAllPageBreaks             'Remove all existing page breaks, Zoom & "Fit to" settings
    .PageSetup.Zoom = False         'Must turn Zoom off and restore the "Fit to" settings
    .PageSetup.FitToPagesWide = 1
    .PageSetup.FitToPagesTall = 99
    ActiveWindow.View = xlPageBreakPreview
    
        'Put manual page breaks back in where needed to avoid "breaking" two merged rows
    .DisplayAutomaticPageBreaks = True      'This statement needed to reset count of page breaks
        'Bug in Excel 97-2003 means that automatic page breaks can be found reliably only if the active cell _
            is at the end of the print area and screen updating is "on". This next statement finds that cell _
            See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/210663/en-us
    Set LastCell = rgPrintArea.Find(What:="*", After:=rgPrintArea.Cells(1, 1), LookIn:=xlValues, _
                LookAt:=xlPart, SearchOrder:=xlByColumns, SearchDirection:=xlPrevious).Offset(1, 0)
    LastCell.Select
    
    If .HPageBreaks.Count > 0 Then
        Application.ScreenUpdating = False
        Do
            i = i + 1
            .HPageBreaks(i).Location.EntireRow.Select   'Selection expands to include rows of any merged cells
            j = Selection.Row
            If .Cells(j - 1, 1).Interior.ColorIndex = 35 Then     'Don't end page on green row
                .Cells(j - 1, 1).EntireRow.Select
                j = Selection.Row
                If .Cells(j - 1, 1).Interior.ColorIndex = 35 Then
                    .Cells(j - 1, 1).EntireRow.Select
                    j = Selection.Row
                End If
            End If
            LastCell.Select
            If j <> .HPageBreaks(i).Location.Row Then
                Set .HPageBreaks(i).Location = .Cells(j, 1)     'This syntax is not suggested by on-line help!
             End If
            If i >= .HPageBreaks.Count Then Exit Do
        Loop
    End If
    
    rg1.Select    'Return to the original starting point
    ActiveWindow.scrollRow = scrollRow
    ActiveWindow.scrollColumn = scrollColumn
    ActiveWindow.View = xlNormalView
    Application.ScreenUpdating = True
    
End With
Application.EnableEvents = True
'On Error GoTo 0
End Sub
                                              
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by: amit_gPosted on 2008-02-04 at 12:58:20ID: 31424317

As I expected, I received the best possible solution in spite of the limitation that the product (Excel) has. Thanks a lot Brad.

 

by: byundtPosted on 2008-02-04 at 13:25:42ID: 20818177

Amit,
Thanks for the kind words and grade! It's people like you who make this site worthwhile for the experts.

Assuming that you want to use my code as a starting point, but have problems with implementation, please continue posting in this thread. Doing so will make it more valuable in the Experts-Exchange database.

Brad

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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