Microsoft KB Archive/288968

= A blank page appears at the end of a printout in Excel =

Article ID: 288968

Article Last Modified on 1/31/2007

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Office Excel 2007
 * Microsoft Office Excel 2003
 * Microsoft Excel 2002 Standard Edition

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This article was previously published under Q288968



SYMPTOMS
When you print a Microsoft Excel workbook, a blank page is printed at the end.



CAUSE
This behavior occurs when the page contains data that is not visible.



MORE INFORMATION
The new Intelliprint functionality in Excel seeks to eliminate the printing of blank pages at the end of a workbook. Intelliprint determines whether the last page of the workbook is blank, and if so, removes it from the print job.

Excel defines a blank page as a page with no content and no visible items.

The following list describes the rules that are used to determine whether a page is considered blank:
 * A page containing empty cells is considered to be blank.

NOTE: Worksheets that contain the following items are considered to be non-blank:
 * Cells containing formulas (even if they have blank results)
 * Cells with errors that are displayed as blank
 * Cells that are formatted to hide text by setting the text color to the same color as the background color
 * Hidden rows and columns are not considered when whether a page is blank. Therefore, if a page contains nothing but data that is in hidden rows or columns, that page is still considered to be blank.
 * Pages that contain objects are considered to be blank only if the following conditions are true:
 * In Microsoft Office Excel 2003 and in earlier versions of Excel, the Print object check box is not selected on the Properties tab in the Format AutoShape dialog box.

In Microsoft Office Excel 2007, the Print object check box is not selected on the Properties tab in the Size and Properties dialog box.

Note To clear this check box, click Size and Properties on the Format menu, and then click to clear the Print object check box on the Properties tab.
 * In Excel 2003 and in earlier versions of Excel, the Hide all check box is selected under Objects on the View tab in the Options dialog box.

In Excel 2007, the Nothing (hide objects) option is selected.

Note To select this option, click the Microsoft Office Button, click Excel Options, and then select the Nothing (hide objects) option.
 * Pages containing borders and cell shading are considered to be non-blank.

NOTE: When a cell is formatted with shading, that cell is considered to be non-blank, even if that shading matches the original background formatting.

For example, in Excel 2003, the standard background is white (the Microsoft Windows default color) and you choose Cells from the Format menu. Then, you select the color &quot;white&quot; from the color palette in the Cell Shading section on the Patterns tab. When you do this, that page is considered to be non-blank, even though nothing is visible.
 * Pages that contain cell formatting such as bold, italics, or text color are considered to be blank if the cells are empty.
 * Print Titles do not cause a page to be considered non-blank.

Trailing blank page suppression is the default behavior of Excel. To override this behavior and to print a trailing blank page, set a print area that includes the blank page.

Additional query words: prb XL2002 page blank shouldn't print don't want to supress stop from printing XL2003 xl2007 kbnoOfficeAlertID

Keywords: kbformat kbprint kbnofix kbprb KB288968

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