Using Excel to Print Course Request Tallies

The Scheduling Optimizer reports are designed for onscreen viewing in your browser. The reports or selected sections of them can be printed either directly from your browser or indirectly using Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel (see Printing Reports).

This document outlines how to use Microsoft Excel to set up a print format version of the Course Request Tally reports with report headings on each page.

Procedure

Use your browser to display and copy the entire Course Request Tally report you want to the clipboard. This document uses the example of the "by Number of Requests" option.

• Open the Course Request Tallies report group and select the options for the report you want to print. The first report page appears on the screen.
• Click the "Printer friendly version" button, then click OK in the dialog box that appears. The entire report appears in a new window.
• Select all displayed data rows past the Course Request Tally report title row; i.e. starting with the column heading row which includes the REQUESTS heading text and ending with the final row containing dashes used to indicate column widths. The selected report data is highlighted.
  
  The beginning of the highlighted report data will look similar to the following screen sample.

The end of the highlighted report data will look similar to the following.

Note: A quick way to define the above selection is to select a small amount of data beginning with the row that includes the REQUESTS column heading, then scroll to the row of dashes at the end of the report and simultaneously hold down the Shift key and click at the end of the row of dashes. All rows from the column headings to the end of the report should show as selected.

• Click "Copy" on the Edit menu (or press the Ctrl-c key combination). The report information is copied to the clipboard.

• Start a new document in Excel.
• Select "Paste" from Excel's Edit menu (or press the Ctrl-v key combination). The contents of the clipboard are pasted into the Excel spreadsheet document as shown below.

Note: The column widths and row heights do not correctly fit the report data when it is first pasted into the Excel document. The report layout is adjusted as part of the preparation for printing outlined in the steps below.

In preparation for printing, make several adjustments to the representation of the report body as initially pasted into the Excel spreadsheet.

• Select the cell containing the column heading text REQUESTS BY GRADE (wrapped so that the text appears on more than one line within the cell), then click Cells. on the Format menu. Select the Alignment tab on the Format Cells dialog which appears and clear the "Wrap text" checkbox. The text now appears on a single line.
• Determine the columns needed below the REQUESTS BY GRADE heading to handle the number of grades in the school, then select several columns starting with the first one following this group of columns by dragging the mouse pointer in the column heading bar. Scroll to the row of dashes in the last report row, confirming that no report data is displayed in the selected columns. If necessary, adjust the column selection and restart this step. Once you have the unneeded columns selected, remove them by clicking Delete on the Edit menu (this avoids printing blank pages for columns which contain no data).
• Scroll back down to the row of dashes at the end of the report and use your mouse to adjust column widths so that the series of dashes appearing in each column just fits in the cell without wrapping.

Scroll back to the top of the spreadsheet and perform the following steps.

• Delete the row of dashes which follows the first two (column heading) rows by selecting the entire row, then clicking Delete in the Edit menu.
• Left justify the course ID column by selecting the entire column (click the A in the column heading bar), then select Cells. from the Format menu and on the Alignment tab in the resulting Format Cells dialog, select Left (Indent) for horizontal alignment. The Course ID's in this column all become left justified.
• With all rows of column A still selected, select Row, then Height. from the Format menu, then enter 12.75 for Row height in the Row Height dialog which appears.
• Select the entire first two rows of the spreadsheet (the ones containing the column header text). Click on the B (bold symbol) in the formatting toolbar (or select "Cells..." on the Format menu, then select Bold in the Font style box on the Font tab of the resulting dialog). The two column heading rows now display in bold

The report body is now formatted for printing.

Use the "Header and Footer..." selection on Excel's View menu to add additional information to the report. The following steps specify column headings to repeat on each page and add a custom report heading which displays the school name, report title, selected report options, report date and page numbering.

• Click "Page Setup..." on the File menu. The Page Setup dialog opens. On the Sheet tab, enter $1:$2 in the "Rows to repeat at top:" box. This specifies that the first two spreadsheet rows are to repeat above the report data on each printed page.

• With the Page Setup dialog still open, click the Header/Footer tab. Use the Custom Header and/or Custom Footer buttons to define additional report information. The example below uses a customer header only.

Note: Remember to select the "#" and "++" symbols provided in the Header dialog to define automatically generated page number and number of pages in the "Page X of Y" section.

The imported Course Request Tally is now formatted as a printable report.

Use the "Print Preview" option on Excel's File menu to preview the report onscreen or, alternatively, print one or two pages to verify that that the report will print correctly. When you are satisfied that the report is correctly set up for print, print it using Excel's  print features. The following illustration shows part of the printed report prepared with the above steps.

---

---

Notes

• If each printed report page doesn't correctly display both the grade headings and totals in the first detail row of each page, increase or decrease the size of the top or bottom margin by a small amount until the first detail row of each page shows correctly. You can visually adjust page margins within Print Preview by clicking on Margins, then dragging any of the page margin lines. You can also adjust page margins by using the Margins tab on the Page Setup dialog.
• If the report exceeds the page width in portrait mode with your data, try reducing the size of the left and right margins. Also, check that you have adjusted column widths to the smallest size that still accommodates the data. If necessary, switch to landscape orientation before printing.

Back to Top