How to Remove a Footer from the Last Printed Page in Excel
Question details
The user needs to remove the footer exclusively from the final printed page of an Excel document, but the instructions provided for Microsoft Word do not work in Excel.
- Product
- Microsoft Excel
- Device & OS
- not provided
- Scenario
- Formatting an Excel spreadsheet for printing where the final page must be printed without the standard footer applied to the rest of the document.
- Observed behavior
- Excel applies header and footer settings to the entire worksheet and does not provide a native feature to exclude or modify the footer for only the last printed page.
Use the Print Preview feature to determine exactly how many pages your Excel worksheet will yield before you attempt to adjust or separate the footers.
Move the Last Page to a Separate Worksheet
Since Excel applies footers to the entire worksheet, moving the final page's data to a new sheet allows you to remove the footer from that specific sheet without affecting the rest of the document.
This is the most reliable workaround for Excel's limitation. By separating the last page, you are essentially treating it as a new document section with its own Page Setup rules.
Switch to Page Layout view to see exactly which rows and columns will fall on the final printed page.
Highlight all the data that belongs on the last page, right-click, and select 'Cut' (or press Ctrl + X).
Click the '+' icon at the bottom of the Excel window to create a new worksheet, and paste the cut data into this new sheet.
Go to the Page Setup settings for this new worksheet and delete the footer content, leaving it completely blank.
Go to File > Print, and under the Settings dropdown, choose 'Print Entire Workbook' to print both sheets consecutively.
Manually Enter Footers on the Spreadsheet
If you must keep all your data on a single worksheet, you can disable the built-in footer tool entirely and manually type your footer text into the bottom cells of each printed page.
Try WPS Office for a Seamless Spreadsheet Experience
While structural printing limitations exist across all spreadsheet software, WPS Office provides a highly compatible, lightweight, and free alternative to Microsoft Office. It offers a familiar interface, ensuring you can manage your workbooks, format printing pages, and handle daily tasks effortlessly without a steep learning curve.
- 1. Download and Install: Get WPS Office for free from the official website and install it on your device.
- 2. Open Your Excel File: Launch WPS Spreadsheet and easily open your existing .xlsx files without losing any formatting.
- 3. Edit and Print: Use the intuitive Page Layout and Print Preview tools to manage your sheets and print jobs perfectly.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why can I remove the last page footer in Word but not in Excel?
Microsoft Word is a word processor that utilizes section breaks, allowing you to apply different formatting and headers/footers to specific pages or sections. Excel is a spreadsheet application that treats an entire worksheet as a single entity, applying the same page setup rules to every printed page generated by that sheet.
Can I set a different first page footer in Excel?
Yes, unlike the last page, Excel does have a built-in feature for the first page. You can enable this by going to Page Setup, clicking the Header/Footer tab, and checking the 'Different First Page' option.
Can a VBA macro remove the footer only on the last page?
VBA cannot change the page setup dynamically in the middle of a single print job. However, a macro can be written to print the document in two stages: first printing all pages except the last with the footer enabled, and then printing the last page with the footer disabled.
