How to Print a Graph in Excel
You’ve done the hard work of turning raw data into a clean, compelling graph in Excel, but now you need to get it out of the spreadsheet and into a presentation, report, or handout. Printing a chart directly from Excel seems like it should be simple, but it often leads to frustrating outcomes - like your chart being cut in half, scaled incorrectly, or printed with a bunch of data you didn't want. This guide will walk you through exactly how to print your Excel graphs perfectly every time, starting with the basics and moving into a few pro tips for complete control over your final printout.
First, Let's Cover the Basics: How to Print a Single Chart
If your goal is to print only the chart itself, without any of the surrounding spreadsheet cells, the process is incredibly straightforward. The secret is to tell Excel what you want to focus on before you even open the print menu.
Here’s the simplest way to print an isolated graph:
Select the Chart: Click once anywhere on your chart. You'll know it's selected when you see a border appear around its edges with small circles (handles) in the corners and at the midpoints. This step is the most important one. By selecting the chart first, you're telling Excel, "This is the only thing I care about right now."
Open the Print Menu: You can do this in two ways. Go to the File tab in the upper-left corner and click Print, or simply use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+P (or Cmd+P on a Mac).
Review and Print: The print preview screen will now appear, showing your chart centered on the page and nothing else. If it looks good, you can hit the Print button.
When you select a chart before printing, Excel automatically changes the print setting from "Print Active Sheets" to "Print Selected Chart." This ensures none of the data from your worksheet will appear on the final printout, giving you a clean, focused visual.
How to Print a Chart Alongside Your Data
Sometimes you need the context of the data right next to the chart. You might want to show the table of sales figures beside the bar chart that visualizes them. In this case, you simply change what you tell Excel to print through a slightly different selection method.
There are two primary ways to do this:
1. Printing the Entire Active Sheet
If you want everything visible on your current worksheet to print - including your chart and all the data - just make sure nothing is selected before you go to the print menu.
Click on any empty cell in your worksheet to ensure your chart is not selected.
Press Ctrl+P (or Cmd+P) to open the Print menu.
Under the Settings section, make sure the dropdown menu is set to Print Active Sheets. The preview pane will now show you how your entire sheet, chart and all, will look when printed. You may need to adjust the layout, which we'll cover in the next section.
2. Printing a Specific Section (Print Selection)
This is the most common and useful method for printing a chart with its corresponding data table. It allows you to create a specific snapshot of your worksheet for printing.
Click and drag your mouse to select the range of cells that includes both your data table and the chart you want to print.
Once your selection is highlighted, open the Print menu (Ctrl+P or Cmd+P).
In the Print menu, under Settings, click the first dropdown menu and change it from "Print Active Sheets" to Print Selection.
The preview pane on the right will update to show only the cells and the chart you selected, perfectly cropped for your report.
Fine-Tuning Your Printout with Page Layout Settings
The default print settings rarely give you the professional-looking result you want. Your chart might seem too small, it could be split across multiple pages, or the margins might look a bit off. Thankfully, Excel’s print settings provide all the tools you need to make your graph look perfect on the page.
You can find all of these options either in the Page Layout tab of the Excel ribbon or directly within the Print Preview screen (usually at the bottom, labeled "Page Setup").
Adjusting Page Orientation
Because most charts are wider than they are tall, they often look better in a horizontal layout.
In the Print Preview screen, click the Portrait Orientation dropdown.
Select Landscape Orientation to turn the page sideways. This gives your chart more horizontal space, allowing it to print larger and clearer without feeling cramped.
Controlling Margins for a Better Fit
Adjusting the margins can give your chart more room to breathe or help it fit onto a single page.
While in the Print menu, find the Margins dropdown (it's usually set to "Normal Margins").
Try selecting Narrow Margins to maximize the available space for your chart. If you need precise control, you can click Custom Margins... to set the exact dimensions for the top, bottom, left, and right margins.
Scaling to Solve All Sizing Problems
This is arguably the most powerful setting for fixing print issues. If your chart or selection is awkwardly split across pages, the scaling setting is the solution you need.
At the very bottom of the Settings list in the Print menu, you’ll find the scaling dropdown, usually set to "No Scaling."
Fit Sheet on One Page: This popular option shrinks your entire selection (or sheet) down so that it fits neatly onto a single piece of paper. This is the go-to solution for preventing your chart from being cut off.
Fit All Columns on One Page: If you have a wide chart or table, this option will shrink it horizontally to fit the page width, though it may still spill onto multiple pages vertically if it's very tall.
Fit All Rows on One Page: This does the opposite, ensuring all your rows fit on a single page vertically, which is useful for tall, thin charts or data sets.
Experimenting with these scaling options will almost always solve the common problem of getting a nicely framed, single-page printout.
Advanced Techniques and Troubleshooting
Once you’ve mastered the basics, you might run into a few specific scenarios. Here’s how to handle them.
Printing Multiple Charts on a Single Page
If you have several charts on your worksheet and want to arrange them onto one printed page, the easiest method is to create a new "printing" sheet.
Create a new, blank worksheet in your Excel file.
Go back to your original sheet. One by one, select each chart you want to print, copy it (Ctrl+C), and paste it (Ctrl+V) onto your new blank sheet.
On the new sheet, drag the charts to arrange them exactly how you'd like them to appear on the final printout. You can resize them and line them up to create a simple dashboard layout.
Once everything is arranged, select anywhere in the document, hit Ctrl+P, and make sure "Print Active Sheets" is selected. Use the orientation and scaling options we discussed to fit your compilation perfectly onto one page.
Saving Your Chart Center Stage as a PDF
Printing to paper is great, but sometimes you just need a shareable digital document. Creating a PDF of your graph is the best way to preserve its formatting and share it with others.
Select the chart you wish to save as a PDF.
Go to File and then click Export.
Choose Create PDF/XPS Document.
Give your file a name, choose a save location, and click Publish. You now have a high-quality PDF containing only your chart, perfect for emailing or embedding in other documents.
Final Thoughts
Printing a graph from Excel doesn't have to be a game of chance. By remembering to select your chart first for an isolated printout or choosing a specific data range with "Print Selection," you can take control. Fine-tuning with the orientation, margin, and scaling options in the print menu will help you master the process and get a perfect, frustration-free result every single time.
Manually printing and sharing static Excel charts can be a time-consuming step in a long reporting process. After getting the data, creating the chart, and formatting it for a presentation, things can change and you have to start all over again. Instead of exporting static images, we built Graphed to help teams create and share live, interactive dashboards that are always up-to-date. By connecting your data sources directly, anyone on your team can get real-time answers and professional-looking reports without ever having to click "Print" again.