# Solved: Excel DAMN Whitespace!



## Erm (Jul 30, 2003)

Hi all,

I have produced a spreadsheet which looks fine on the screen, but when I print it or look at it in print preview, I get whitespace at the bottom of some cells and others cut off half a line of text!? This is driving me batty...any ideas?

Just attached screen print of the print preview window in Excel to demonstrate what I mean.


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## EAFiedler (Apr 25, 2000)

Hi Erm

When you are in Print Preview, have you tried the  Page Break Preview button.
In that view you can move the page breaks where you want them to stay.

Then click on the Print Preview button again, check the Setup>Page tab, to see what the scaling % has been adjusted to by Excel.

In the future, for that document, you would want to stay with that same scaling % for that document to retain the same print out style.

If you add/delete rows/columns AFTER adjusting the Page Break Preview you will need to readjust the Break points.


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## Erm (Jul 30, 2003)

it seems to be down to the individual cells...I wonder whether pasting into these cells has caused the problem?!! I have attached an example to my original post now...to help explain.


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## EAFiedler (Apr 25, 2000)

It does not appear to be so, but did you merge any of the cells?

Have you tried a Save as, on the file creating a new one, and then trying your Print Preview?

No luck with the Page Break Preview?


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## MFDnNC (Sep 7, 2004)

Select the rows and do Format - Rows - Auto Fit


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## Erm (Jul 30, 2003)

Already tried both of your suggestions and it didn't work either...I removed all formatting and then reapplied each format one at a time to try and find the cause of the problem...this stopped it cutting off any text but still leaves whitespace on some cells...This is not so much a problem though...I can live with it...though it really bugs me!....Thanks for all your help! Have a good new year!


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## XL Guru (Aug 30, 2003)

Debs, it doesn't look like sensitive data. Why not upload it here (zip it, or save a copy with extension txt) for someone to have a squint?


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## Erm (Jul 30, 2003)

I have attached the file...silly me...didn't think of zipping it!!! Just thought it was odd that I couldn't attch an xls file!


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## XL Guru (Aug 30, 2003)

Check out the formats of eg: B2 and B3 (Format -- Cells -- Number). Something's going on there. (..)


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## XL Guru (Aug 30, 2003)

The weird format thing's kicking in when Description length exceeds c.255 characters. Still checking ...


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## XL Guru (Aug 30, 2003)

The format thing *isn't* the culprit. You still get padding in some cells where len < 255. If I tinker with font and/or column width, it cures it in some places yet causes it in other places that were previously OK.

Reluctantly I'm writing this off as a bug. I can only suggest:

(i) manually decreasing row height where it occurs (Wrap Text is notoriously problematical)

(ii) using a word processor (eg: copy the table & paste into Word as formatted text. Then turn *off* "specify row height" for the Description column of the resultant table).

Regrets,
Andy


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## Erm (Jul 30, 2003)

How weird! I have tried playing with the row height manually...it doesn't seem to help...I think an export into Word is the only answer. Thanks for all your help, much appreciated!


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## ABCottrill (Nov 28, 2003)

I have had similar problems. Select all the data, open a new spreadsheet and copy the data and then format it the way you want. It seems that Excel gets hung-up sometimes and the formatting cannot be corrected.

Bruce


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