Printing and exporting — Nixt Sheets docs

Nixt Sheets divides each sheet into pages using its page setup. The same pages are used by the print preview, Page Break Preview, printing and PDF export, so the page count the preview gives is the page count you get.

Page setup belongs to each sheet and is saved in the workbook.

Page setup on the ribbon

The Page setup group on the Page Layout tab has:

Control	What it does
Paper size (shows the current size)	A4, A3, A5, Letter or Legal. New sheets use A4.
Orientation	Switches between portrait and landscape. Its tooltip says Switch to landscape or Switch to portrait, and it is highlighted in landscape.
Margins	Narrow (0.5 inch), Normal (0.75 inch) or Wide (1.25 inch), on all four sides. New sheets use Normal.
Print area	Set to selection, Add to print area or Clear
Breaks	Insert page break, Remove page break or Reset all breaks
Print titles	Opens the Page setup dialog
Preview	Opens Print preview
Print	Prints through your PDF viewer

Header & Footer in Insert › Text also opens the Page setup dialog.

Print area

Without a print area, a sheet prints all its data: the block from the first to the last filled cell.

To	Do this
Print only part of a sheet	Select it and choose Page Layout › Page setup › Print area › Set to selection. The status bar says, for example, Print area set to A1:F40.
Print several separate blocks	Set the first block, then select each further block and choose Add to print area. The status bar lists the blocks, for example Print area is now 2 blocks: A1:F40, H1:K20.
Print the whole sheet again	Choose Print area › Clear. The status bar says Print area cleared.

Each block of a print area starts on a new page and repeats its own print titles; page numbers carry on from one block to the next. Adding a block that is already in the print area says range is already in the print area.

Page breaks

Pages divide where the paper runs out. To start a new page at a place of your choosing:

Click the cell that should start the new page.
Choose Page Layout › Page setup › Breaks › Insert page break, or View › Page breaks › Insert.

A break is added above the cell’s row and to the left of its column (only a row break in column A, only a column break in row 1). The status bar says Page break at followed by the cell.

Command	What it does	Messages
Remove page break	Removes a break you inserted at the current cell’s row or column	Page break removed. or There is no page break you put in at cell.
Reset all breaks	Removes every break you inserted	Back to the breaks the page size works out for itself.

On A1, Insert page break says A page break goes above and to the left of the cursor, and there is nothing above A1.

To see where pages divide, switch to View › Workbook views › Page Break Preview. Breaks you inserted are solid lines; breaks worked out from the page setup are dashed. See Views, zoom and split panes.

The Page setup dialog

Open it with Page Layout › Page setup › Print titles or Insert › Text › Header & Footer. Set the options and click Apply.

Print titles

Rows at the top and Columns at the left are numbers: how many rows at the top of the printed area, and how many columns at its left, to repeat on every page. For example, Rows at the top of 1 prints the header row at the top of every page. Use 0 for none.

Header and footer

Type the text for the Header and the Footer. Codes starting with & divide the strip into three parts and fill in details as each page prints:

Code	What it does
`&L`	What follows goes on the left
`&C`	What follows goes in the centre. Text before any part code also goes in the centre.
`&R`	What follows goes on the right
`&P`	The page number
`&N`	The number of pages
`&D`	Today’s date, as day/month/year
`&T`	The time, as hours:minutes
`&F`	The workbook’s file name
`&A`	The sheet’s name
`&&`	An ampersand

For example:

&L&F&CPage &P of &N&R&D

prints the file name on the left, Page 1 of 3 in the centre and the date on the right. New sheets have the footer &CPage &P of &N.

Scaling

Option	What it does
No fitting	Prints at the percentage in Scale, per cent (10 to 400)
1 page wide	Shrinks the print so all the columns fit across one page
1 page tall	Shrinks the print so all the rows fit down one page
1 page each way	Shrinks the print onto a single page
Scale, per cent	Shown with No fitting only

The print is never shrunk below 10%.

Placement

Option	What it does
Centre across	Centres the printed cells between the left and right margins
Centre down	Centres the printed cells between the top and bottom margins
Across then down	Numbers the pages across the sheet first, then down. Off, pages are numbered down first, then across.

Scale to fit on the ribbon

The Scale to fit group on the Page Layout tab sets scaling without opening the dialog:

Control	Choices
Width (shows Width: auto or the number of pages)	Automatic, 1 page, 2 pages or 3 pages across
Height (shows Height: auto or the number of pages)	Automatic, 1 page, 2 pages or 3 pages down
Scale (shows the percentage, or Scale: auto while a fit is set)	50%, 75%, 100% or 150%. Choosing a percentage sets Width and Height back to automatic.

Sheet options

The Sheet options group on the Page Layout tab includes a print setting:

Button	What it does
Print the grid lines	Draws light grid lines round the printed cells

The group’s other buttons, for grid lines on screen and a right-to-left sheet, are described in Rows, columns and sheets.

Print preview

Click Page Layout › Page setup › Preview. The Print preview dialog describes how the current sheet will print:

A summary line, for example 6 pages — 3 across, 2 down, on A4 landscape, scaled to 85%.
Header and Footer — what they will say on the first page, with the left, centre and right parts separated by dots, or a dash when empty.
Repeated — the print titles, such as 1 row at the top, when there are any.
Printing — what is printed: everything used with its address, the print area with its address, or the number of print areas and their addresses.
WHERE THE PAGES DIVIDE — each page and the cells on it, such as Page 2 A41:F80.

Click Show the breaks to close the preview and switch to Page Break Preview, or Close. If the sheet is empty, the preview says the sheet is empty, so there is nothing to print.

The preview covers the current sheet only.

Print

Nixt Sheets prints through your computer’s PDF viewer, which provides the printer list, the number of copies and the page range.

Click Page Layout › Page setup › Print.
The workbook is written to a PDF in a temporary folder and opens in your default PDF viewer. The status bar says Opened in your PDF viewer — print from there.
Print from the PDF viewer.

The PDF includes every sheet that isn’t hidden, not only the current one; choose the pages you want in the viewer’s print dialog.

Message	What to do
Could not open the print copy: followed by a reason	No app is set to open PDFs, or it refused the file. Install or choose a default PDF viewer, or export to PDF with Save a copy as and print that file.
Could not print: followed by a reason	The PDF couldn’t be written. Try again, or export to PDF instead.

What a printed page contains

Printing and PDF export draw, for every visible sheet, each page’s cells in the print area:

Cell values as they are displayed, with their number formats. Formulas print their results.
Fill colours, text colours, bold and italic.
Left, centre and right alignment. With no alignment set, numbers are on the right and text on the left.
Text at its own size, up to 10 points, in a standard PDF font chosen to match the cell’s font: a sans-serif face, a serif face for fonts such as Times New Roman and Georgia, or a monospaced face for fonts such as Courier New.
The first row of each print area, and any repeated title rows, in bold.
Light grid lines, when Print the grid lines is on.
The header and footer, in small grey text in the top and bottom margins.

Each sheet starts on a new page and has a bookmark with its name in the PDF. A sheet with no data prints one page saying it is empty.

Export to other formats

Click the download icon to the right of Save in the title bar (Save a copy as).
Choose a format.
Choose where to save the file.

Menu item	What is exported
Excel workbook (`.xlsx`)	The whole workbook. See File formats and compatibility.
PDF (`.pdf`)	Every visible sheet, paginated as described above — the same file Print opens
Comma-separated values (`.csv`)	The current sheet
Tab-separated values (`.tsv`)	The current sheet
Web page (`.html`)	The current sheet

If the export fails, the status bar says Could not save: followed by the reason.

CSV and TSV

Only the current sheet is exported. To export another sheet, show it first.
The export covers the block from the first to the last filled cell. Empty rows and columns before the data are left out.
Each cell is written as it is displayed, with its number format: a cell showing £1,200.00 is written as £1,200.00. Formulas are written as their results.
A value containing the delimiter, a double quote or a line break, or starting or ending with a space, is put in double quotes, with any quote inside doubled.
Every row has the same number of fields.
The file is written as UTF-8 text.

Formatting, formulas, other sheets, charts and everything else that isn’t a value are left out.

Web page

The current sheet’s data is written as a complete HTML page with one table, titled with the sheet’s name. Each cell keeps its displayed value, bold, italic, text colour, fill and horizontal alignment, and merged cells span the right number of rows and columns. Styles are written inline, so the table keeps its look when pasted into an email.