Simple Sample: Changing Paper Size

This is a sample of changing the paper size.

In this tutorial, we'll create a form that is printable on "B5 7.17-inch by 10.12-inch" paper. The base template used in this sample is Discount Amount Field (c4051).

Here are the steps to doing this customization:

1. Backup the template.
2. Open the spreadsheet.
3. Push down the "Design Mode" button on the ribbon tab.
4. Go to the Excel "Page Layout" ribbon tab.
5. Click "Size" in the "Page Setup" group.
6. Choose the target paper size "B5" from the list.
7. Go to the Microsoft Excel "View" ribbon tab.
8. Choose "Page Break Preview".

   In this preview screen, Excel shows how many pages it needs to print the current print area and what content (fields) will be on each page. In this example, Excel shows that the form will be printed on four B5 pages.

9. In the horizontal direction, The "Line Total" column doesn't fit on the first page. To make it fit on the first page, we narrowed down the width of the "Line Total" column a bit.

   You can adjust the widths of the other columns too. In this example, we try to narrow columns F, G, H, and J. If Excel finds the content of the printable form could fit on one page in the horizontal direction, it removes the vertical page break line (blue dashed line) automatically.

   If narrowing the column widths isn't enough, you need to consider hiding or removing some columns in the printable area.

10. In the vertical direction, Excel shows that there are 4 rows on the second page. This is not a big number. So we can try to hide some empty rows first.

    In this example, R40, R41, and R46 are all empty. Since we hope to leave some space between the "Total" cell and the "Thank you for your business" label, we hide R40 and R41 and then narrow the height of R46.

    To hide a row, right-click a row heading and then choose "Hide" from the shortcut menu. To narrow a row, drag the bottom border of the row and move it up slightly.

11. We also need to adjust the width of the decorative line underneath "Phone Number, Web Address, etc.", which is named "oknWidget_1".

    To do this, we click to select the object and drag the right side of the selection mark (push the SHIFT key on the keyboard to force it either vertical or horizontal) to make it fit on the page break mark.

12. Go to the Excel menu "File" and then "Print" to see the print preview.
13. If everything is OK, return to normal view by pushing down the "Normal" button on the Excel "View" ribbon tab.
14. Exit design mode by clicking the "Design Mode" button again.
15. Save the template.

Changing the paper type and size of an existing form is usually a time-consuming job. Sometimes it even results in a redesign of the form.