Excel printing and display scaling bug

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?

This was on my work PC.  It won't be upgraded till later this year.  I used my test file on my home machine.  It has 32 bit office, and windows 10 pro 64 bit.  Exactly the same results as above.  Page one is different.  Please note I also tried 150% DPI and same data shows on page 1 as 125% DPI.

So,

different PC,

different OS,

different office,

same problem.

I couldn't get a screenshot to upload, so link to onedrive file below.

Office version

(PII is masked by forum moderator)

Unfortunately this bug will likely never be fixed. The way the size and display is calculated is too fundamental to how Excel works. It would require a complete rewrite. The code's too deep. "Ya can't get thar from here!" The only thing that works for sure is to require everyone in your organization to use 100% scaling. Obviously this is no good for those of us with bad eyesight and/or 4K monitors. Some workarounds I've come up with:

• Set your monitor to a lower resolution, like 1080p or lower. This looks like **** on a high DPI display, but at 100% scaling, printing will be correct.
• Buy a giant 42in. 1080p television and use this as your monitor. They don't manufacture these anymore, but they should be available second hand for the next several years.
• Sit closer to your 4K monitor. (Shut up, Mom! I have no other choice!)
• Buy eyeglasses.
• Do the whole "Set to 100%, sign out, sign in, print, set to 125%, sign out, sign in" rain dance every time you need to print or do pixel perfect formatting adjustments.
• Sign into Windows with your settings at 100%. Change to 125% and DO NOT sign out. This makes everything bigger but maintains the original draw distance between cells. However, you get blurry elements including dialog boxes. Again, what's the point of a high DPI display if my s***'s blurry?
  • Another version of this fix is to have two monitors, one at 100%, the other at 125%. This only works when the 100% monitor is set as your primary display. And surprise! You still get blurriness on the 125%. (I suspect messing around with a laptop dock has the same behavior, but I haven't tested it.)
• Leave it at 125% and just fiddle with the formatting until it prints like you want, or the universe ends, whichever comes first.

None of these solutions are ideal, but mark my words: Microsoft will not be fixing this bug this decade. Does anyone else have a hacky workaround?

(One parting thought. I tried it on two separate computers, with different graphics cards, and I fiddled with the graphics settings on each: Nothing. It doesn't have anything to do with graphics card settings. Prove me wrong.)

Good explanation, "Yu can't get thar from here!", however for a company the size of Microsoft, not very acceptable. One of the reasons for scaling is recognizing not all humans have the same physical characteristics, and being able to see small print vs. big print falls into the category of accessibility. Having modern day billion dollar software that cannot print in sync with visual scaling is poor, and below Microsoft's benchmark. Its like saying we can't figure out how to have a wheel chair accessible washroom in an office building.

Disappointing that this is the answer provided by a blue chip company like Microsoft.

That is not the answer from Microsoft.  They will never tell you if or when anything will be fixed, until it is fixed.  It seems they have put a lot of work into display scaling because it in general works much much better than it did in previous editions of windows.  It is unfortunate they broke a part of their office software with their OS improvement.  I have hope they will fix it. I will note we are about a month away from the two year anniversary of my creation of this post...

FYI .. I got a new work laptop with windows 10.  Still has the same problem.

Hello,

What you described does not achieve any different results than I described in my original post.  I stated there that I had changed the print scaling by a percentage to make it fit on 6 pages.  The problem is that this does not achieve the same result as when display scaling is shut off in windows.  The data on the page actually appears different.  It is much more narrow, and simply does not fit on the page as well.  I'd be happy to PM someone a PDF that shows the difference. 

FYI, I am fixing a specific paper size:  11 x 17

I would also like to point out:  No one has addressed the fact that I cannot disable display scaling via the excel shortcut.

Thanks.