Excel Tips : Hiding Errors on Printouts

Excel has a number of different errors that can appear in your worksheet, for any number of reasons. Errors values show up with a pound (hash) symbol followed by the type of error, as in #DIV/0! or #N/A.

When you print your worksheet, Excel prints the error values, by default. If you prefer, you can choose to have Excel not print the error values. Follow these steps:

1. Choose Page Setup from the File menu. Excel displays the Page Setup dialog box. (If you are using Excel 2007, display the Page Layout tab of the ribbon and then click the small icon at the lower-right of the Page Setup group to display this dialog box.)
2. Make sure the Sheet tab is displayed.
3. Use the Cell Errors As drop-down list to specify how you want the error values printed.
4. Click OK to close the Page Setup dialog box.

In step 3, you have several options in the drop-down list:

• Displayed. Prints the error values as they show in the worksheet.
• . Replaces the error value with a blank; effectively hides the error values.
• --. Replaces the error value with two dashes.
• #N/A. Replaces all error values with #N/A.