Excel has space for extra lines but puts them on the next page

Question

My excel spreadsheet has space for several more lines at the bottom of the page but puts them on the next page instead. I checked for page breaks but there are no page breaks in that spot. (I did check both manual and automatic page breaks, and nothing shows.) How do I get the lines up on the previous page?

Answer 1

Hi @Sue,

Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Q&A forum.

According to your concern, may I confirm that you are referring to the blank space between the rows and footer as same as in the picture below?

If that's the case, based on my understanding and my testing environment, this blank space is a built-in feature as it's used to distinguished between the Footer data and the Excel worksheet data (as same as Header as there is also blank space there). In my testing, to get the lines up to the previous page, there is no option to configure this space, and the only option is to reduce the footer/header by going to Page Layout > Margin > lower Header/Footer to 0.3 and Top/Bottom to 0.25 (which nearly means reduce the Header/Footer). With this Page setting, you can get about 4 rows up to on the previous page.

Hope the sharing will help. Please understand that my initial response does not always resolve the issue immediately. However, you can try these steps and let me know if it works for you. If not, we can work together to find the most appropriate solution for the situation.

If you have any questions or need further assistance, please feel free to share them in the comments on this post so I can continue to support you.    

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation. I'm looking forward to your reply.

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Answer 2

The extra lines are being forced to a new page by Excel’s current page breaks and scaling settings. Adjust the page breaks and scaling so the rows fit on the first page.

Use Page Break Preview to see and adjust breaks:

1. Open the worksheet.
2. On the View tab, in Workbook Views, select Page Break Preview (or click Page Break Preview on the status bar).
3. In this view, dashed lines are automatic page breaks and solid lines are manual page breaks.
4. Drag the horizontal page break line down to include the extra rows on the first page. (If the line cannot be dragged, enable drag-and-drop in Options as described in the reference.)

If manual page breaks are blocking rows:

1. Still in Page Break Preview, click a row below the unwanted horizontal break.
2. Go to Page Layout > Page Setup group > Breaks > Remove Page Break.
3. To clear all manual breaks and let Excel recalculate automatically, choose Reset All Page Breaks instead.

Check scaling so manual breaks take effect correctly:

1. Go to Page Layout tab.
2. In Page Setup, open the dialog launcher (small arrow).
3. On the Page tab, under Scaling, select Adjust to instead of Fit to if Fit to is currently set. When Fit to is used, manual page breaks may be ignored and rows can be pushed to the next page.

After these changes, return to Normal view or Page Layout view and use File > Print to confirm that the extra lines now print on the first page.

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References:

• Insert, move, or delete page breaks in a worksheet
• Insert, move, or delete page breaks in a sheet
• View page breaks