Excel printing and display scaling bug

Anonymous
2018-04-10T15:17:07+00:00

Windows 7 Pro

Office 365 x64 ver 1709 (Build 8431.2236 click-torun)

When printing with Excel, the page layout is being affected by display scaling.  I had it set at 125%.  A spreadsheet that normally prints to 6 pages is trying to print to 9 or 10 pages.  Adjusting the page size in "page break view" does not fix the problem.  This is with the setting, "fit all columns on one page".  If you simply reduce the *print* scaling (by a percentage, instead) until it print on only 6 pages, the sheet appears more narrow than it normally does.

If you simply set the display scaling back to 100%, it fixes the problem.  Display scaling should only change what I see, not how it prints.

Furthermore, checking the box under excel shortcut:  "disable display scaling on high dpi settings" does NOT disable the display scaling for excel like it should.  I had to completely shut it off under display settings to resolve the problem.

Edit:  Added *print* to the scaling option I was referring to.   Please note display scaling setting is in windows and print scaling is in excel.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-11-08T10:44:57+00:00

    We have had this issue as well, printing our reports to PDF is never WYSIWYG, always with a different format/page layout from the print preview, regardless of Word or Excel, since Office 2010+ till 365.

    What worked for us was changing the printing preference of the printer driver "Print to PDF" to A4, since that was what we had specified in the Page Layout in both Word and Excel.

    Oddly, setting the Printing Defaults under Advanced tab, did not work.  Also, "Paper Available" under Printer Properties will always show Letter.

    This was tested on 150% to 100% display scaling on Windows display options.

    Maybe something like the application isn't sending the correct parameters or Print to PDF isn't honoring the sent parameters.

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-08-25T05:29:17+00:00

    We have the problem with both custom and narrow margins, and on several computers in the company (all which have been checked).

    We found out that the scaling errors are somewhat constant on a specific computer. As a temporary solution we have applied correction factors (in both x and y dir) on all the figures in the given spreadsheats. The figures then appear "unscaled" in the pdf print, however in the exceel sheet they are stretched. 

    This is not an optimal solution, as correction factors need to be applied on every single computer and the figures appear stretched when working in excel.

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-08-24T14:13:37+00:00

    I have had this very issue with a user, however I am unable to recreate on my computer however on theirs it happens.

    To work around I have managed is to get the user to print to PDF and swap between margins (Custom to Narrow) and each time we print now we set the margins to be "Custom" then back to "Narrow" and it works perfectly.

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-08-06T08:23:45+00:00

    Hi.

    This an issue which has existed for many years. Did you fix it?

    Many frusrated people around the internet.

    I have a sheet where I insert pictures as vector grafic(.emf format). When printing to pdf in excel (in original size without scaling), the data in the pictures (not the frame) is scaled differently in the x and y direction, and the excel sheet in generel is shortened in the y-direction while it maintains the desired scale in the x-direction.

    The same thing happens when printing directly on a physical printer.

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  5. Anonymous
    2020-07-10T08:22:17+00:00

    I've also ran into this bug, Windows 10 2004 64-bit and Excel 365. The workaround I'm doing doesn't involve signing out and in, I just make sure Excel is closed, set scaling to 100%, open Excel, and set scaling back to 175%. In my case as long as Excel is opened while display scaling in Windows is set to 100%, it will keep the correct printing layout. As long as Excel is kept opened, I can open other files and will print correctly, as far as I can tell.

    This also works with Remote Desktop, Log into RD with 100% scaling, open Excel, log off RD, and log back in with the scaling I want.

    But geez, more than 2 years and nothing, Microsoft. Really?

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