Formulas are a very important part of the Excel 2010 user experience because they allow you to automate calculations that need to be performed upon values in Excel. And while the result of those formulas’ calculations is typically the most important part of the equation, you may find yourself in a situation where you need to know how to print formulas in Excel 2010. The method for doing so is not very obvious, but it does exist. By following the steps in the tutorial below you will be able to view and print out the formulas that are contained within a cell, as opposed to the calculated value resulting from the formula.
How to Display Formulas in Excel 2010 and Print Them
For additional information on printing formulas in Excel 2010, including pictures of these steps, you can continue to the next section. Would you like to show some of your data as percentages? Then this guide on how to calculate percentage in Excel can point you in the right direction.
How to Show and Print Excel 2010 Formulas (Guide with Pictures)
There are many different kinds of Excel formulas, and they can be inserted easily as pre-configured formulas, or as formulas that you create yourself. Regardless of their origin, you can change your Excel settings to allow the formulas to be displayed on your screen or when you are printing. Excel shows the calculated result or calculated values of your formulas by default. It will only be showing formulas if you have set that option for the entire sheet.
Step 1: Open the Excel file containing the formulas that you want to print.
Step 2: Click the Formulas tab at the top of the window.
Step 3: Click the Show Formulas button in the Formula Auditing group section of the ribbon at the top of the window.
Step 4: Click the File tab at the top-left corner of the window, then click the Print option in the column at the left side of the window.
Note that you can also press Ctrl + P on your keyboard to quickly access the Print menu as well.
Step 5: Click the Print button to print the document.
Once the document has been printed with the displayed formulas, you can return to the location identified in Step 3 and click the Show Formulas button again to stop displaying your formulas.
Can I Show or Hide the Formula Bar in Excel?
Above the cells in your spreadsheet is a horizontal section called the formula bar. When Excel is configured to display your formula results in your cells, then you can select a cell to see the formula displayed in the formula bar. But that formula bar can also be toggled to be shown or hidden, so you might be wondering how to do so. If you click the View tab at the top of the window you can fin the Formula Bar checkbox in the Show group of the ribbon. Checking or unchecking that box will allow you to hide or display the formula bar at will.
More Information on How to Print Formulas in Excel 2010
The steps above are going to help you to show the formulas in the cells of your spreadsheet, as well as print them out when you print a physical copy of the worksheet. This is a common request when you are working with Excel in a computer class or another learning or scholastic environment. An important part of learning to use Excel is properly incorporating formulas and functions into your workflow. Many people who are new to Excel or intimidated by it will perform their calculations on a calculator, or won’t use the tools within the application to generate results. If someone is asking you to show and print your formulas then they want to see that you arrived at a solution using a formula, rather than simply typing the desired result into the cell. Excel is going to expand the width of your columns a bit when you enable the “Show Formulas” option, but it may not be enough to fully display the formulas. You can double-click the right column heading border to automatically expand its width and show the widest data within the column. If you select the Page Layout tab at the top of the window you can click the small Page Setup button that is located at the bottom-right of the Page Setup group of the ribbon. This is going to open the Page Setup dialog box where you can adjust various settings that will affect the appearance of your printed page. You can adjust various print settings for the worksheet including options like choosing to print titles, or the page order if you will have multiple pages when you choose to print active sheets. You could also click the Print Preview button to see how your spreadsheet will look if you have elected to display formulas or calculated results. On the Print menu you can also adjust options like whether to print active sheets or the entire Excel workbook. You can also switch the page orientation, or you can modify the scaling so that all the columns or all the rows fit on one page. If you open the Page Layout tab you will find a Sheet Options group where you can elect to view or print column headings or gridlines. When you need to print multiple worksheets but not the entire workbook then you can hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard and click each of the sheet tabs that you want to include in the print job. Are you finding that your formulas aren’t updating when you change a value that should change a formula result? Find out how to force Excel to calculate your formulas by enabling an automatic calculation option.
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