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Onsite Training
Since 2003, iCellini Computer Training has been San Diego's number one choice for onsite computer training.

How to Print a Multi-page Worksheet without Printing the Header on the First Page

By John Cellini
Published on August 27, 2007

Well, it doesn't seem like a difficult thing to do. You just want to print your multi-page worksheet with headers, but you do not want the header printed on the first page. It's not a problem in Word, but how do you do it in Excel?

Here's the short answer: It cannot be done it in Excel.

Here's the follow-up to that disappointing answer: There are some feeble work-arounds you can use or you can create a macro that will do the trick.

Work-arounds

Many Excel users get around this problem by simply printing the first page without the header before they create the header. They then create the header and print the remaining pages. This can also be done the other around: print the worksheet pages except the first page with the header, delete the header and then print the first page.

Well, I told you that these work-arounds were feeble! A better solution is to create a macro.

Creating a Macro with the Recorder

This tutorial assumes you know how to create a macro using the macro recorder. If you don't, see our tutorial on How to Record and Run a Macro.

Record a macro following these steps:

Print the first page
Create your header
Print the remaining pages

This solution works well. However, the header is embedded in the macro, so if you want to change the header you will have to edit it in the Visual Basic editor. If you don't know VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) programming, you will have to delete the macro and recreate it. That's not so bad, but I have a better solution for you.

Create a Macro in the Visual Basic Editor

I assume that you are not a VBA programmer. I'm not either. Don't worry. I have VBA code that will resolve our problem and I will show you how to insert it in the Visual Basic Editor.

The advantage of creating your macro in the Visual Basic Editor is that you can create a procedure (a group of VBA statements that performs a task or returns a result) that will command Excel to print the multi-page worksheet with headers but omit printing the header on the first page.

I know other programming languages so I thought I could figure out how to write the VBA code for this command. I came close. I posted the code on the Microsoft Excel Worksheet Functions newsgroup which is frequented by some very sharp Excel users, many of which are VBA programmers. Someone who goes by the username OssieMac replied to my post and generously rewrote parts of my code so that it does what we want it to do. I tested the code and it works! (I wish I had more information about OssieMac so I could properly credit him or her, but there was no information in OssieMac's profile.)

When a macro is stored in a workbook, the VBA code for that macro is stored in an object called a module. We are going to copy OssieMac's code and paste it in the module of the Personal Macro Workbook.

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