XL: New Worksheet Previewed and Printed Without Gridlines

ID: Q129445

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Excel for Windows 95, version 7.0
Microsoft Excel 97 for Windows

SYMPTOMS

In Microsoft Excel, when you create a new worksheet and print it, the worksheet is printed without gridlines by default.

CAUSE

In Microsoft Excel, when you create a new worksheet, the worksheet is displayed in print preview and is printed without gridlines. However, when you open a worksheet or workbook that was created in an earlier version of Microsoft Excel, the file behaves as it did in the earlier version; that is, the file is printed and displayed in print preview with gridlines if it was printed with gridlines in the earlier version of Microsoft Excel.

RESOLUTION

To print your worksheet with gridlines in Microsoft Excel, do the following:

1. On the File menu, click Page Setup, and then click the Sheet tab.

2. Under Print, select the Gridlines check box.

3. Click OK.

To print all worksheets in new workbooks with gridlines as the default, create a workbook autotemplate named Book.xlt, by doing the following:

1. In a new workbook, right-click on a sheet tab and click Select All

   Sheets on the shortcut menu. Or, if you want only certain sheets to
   have gridlines, press and hold the CTRL key and click on the
   individual sheet tabs.

2. On the File menu, click Page Setup, and then click the Sheet tab.

3. Under Print, click Gridlines, and then click OK.

4. To ungroup the sheets, right-click the sheet tab and click Ungroup

   Sheets on the shortcut menu.

5. On the File menu, click Save As. In the File Name box, type "Book"

  (without the quotation marks). In the Save As Type list, click
  Template (*.xlt).

6. In the Save In list, locate the Xlstart folder and click Save.

   In version 97, the default location of Xlstart is \Program Files\ 
   Microsoft Office\Office\Xlstart.

   In version 7.0, the default location of Xlstart is \Microsoft
   Office\Microsoft Excel\Xlstart.

7. Close and then restart Microsoft Excel.

Now when you create a new workbook, the worksheets contained in the workbook are displayed in print preview and are printed with gridlines. Note that you can also create a worksheet autotemplate by using the steps above to save a workbook with a single worksheet (with the Gridlines check box selected) as Sheet.xlt in the Xlstart folder.

STATUS

This behavior is by design of Microsoft Excel in the versions listed at the beginning of this article and is different from the default behavior in earlier versions of Microsoft Excel.

Additional query words: 7.00 8.00 97 missing gone blank options sheet

Keywords          : xlprint xlwin 
Version           : WINDOWS:7.0,97
Platform          : WINDOWS

Last Reviewed: January 8, 1999