unwanted extra blank pages in Excel 2010

Anonymous
2013-01-13T17:34:03+00:00

Sometimes, when I'm working in an Excel 2010 document, I'll click File | Print just to see the preview of what the document will look like (in terms of its division into pages) when it's printed.

Usually everything is as expected, but occasionally Excel will arbitrarily decide that my document has many extra blank pages at the end of it.

No amount of removing page breaks or deleting rows at the end of the document (or relaunching Excel or rebooting the computer) will correct this.  If I save the document as a .pdf file, the problem persists in the .pdf file.

Can anyone tell me what's going on and how to fix this?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2013-01-13T17:45:10+00:00

It would appear you've run into the infamousLast Cell property of Excel. To verify the cell that Excel believes is the last relevant cell, you can use Ctrl+End. This will take you to the cell that Excel believes to the the outer extent of information. The cell may not contain any information but the row and/or column it is on either has information or had information at some point.

To reset theLastCell of a worksheet, select a cell that is one down and one right to the one you want to be the absolute extents of your worksheet (e.g. all the way down and right). For example, if you want Z99 as the newLast Cell, select AA100. Next, walk through these steps to completely remove extraneous information,

  1. PressCTRL+Shift+<right arrow>. Release and pressCTRL+<spacebar>. Release and pressALT+E then D or right click the highlighted columns and selectDelete.
  2. PressHome, then pressCTRL+Shift+<down arrow>. Release and pressShift+<spacebar>. Release and pressALT+E thenD or right click the highlighted rows and selectDelete.
  3. PressCTRL+Home to return to A1. ImmediatelySave or (if you don't trust your keystrokes)Save As to confirm the new Last Cell position.
  4. PressCTRL+End and you should be in theLast_Cell (e.g. Z99).

It might seem like a lot, but it takes a lot more time to type it out here than it does to actually do it.

Due diligence: There is the potential here to delete a lot of possibly relevant data and/or formulas. Make sure you have a backup copy!

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-03-30T16:06:08+00:00

    Thank you!!  This was bananas but it worked!

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-01-08T03:21:36+00:00

    JLLatham from January 13, 2013: Thanks! You were totally on target. When I readjusted two different cells the problem was solved. All of the other solutions mentioned were of no avail, but your suggestion, which I followed, solved the problem. Thanks and be blessed. Ira

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-12-04T19:28:49+00:00

    I had the same issue but stumbled upon a different approach. after hitting control+end I found the Last Cell and it was to the right of the only page I needed to print, therefore causing the extra page when printing. I do not know if this will work for you ut here is what I did;

    1. Control+End to find the Last Cell
    2. From the Home Tab click on "Check Cell" within the Styles section
    3. Delete the entire Column that the Last Cell is in (If it is a row that will not affect your work you could try and delete the entire row instead)

    Hope this works.

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-05-28T22:51:12+00:00

    Excellent! Using 2013 and this solution works great. Thank you!

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