Printing Excel Family Tree

[RJ_Paton]

Depending upon which version of Excel you are using it has a built in ability to "print" to pdf

at Print, select Microsoft to PDF as your printer
click on printer properties
select advanced
under paper size select A3 and click on ok (and again to return to main screen)

Failing that, CutePDF as recommended by TrevorW is an excellent tool.

[Rosinish]

It may be an idea to say what make/model of printer you're using as someone knowing that may be able to help further?

I choose;

File
Print
Properties
Size

or

File
Page Setup
Margins
Options
Size

In 'Size' there's a list of 23 choices

(I have no mention of pdf) it just prints as an excel file which prints off & looks like a normal word doc)


Annie

[PaulStaffs]

Install LibreOffice (https://www.libreoffice.org/ ) the free alternative to MS Office.

You'll be able to open your Excel spreadsheet directly then choose A3 as the paper size (see my screen-shot). You can then fiddle around with font style, sizes, margins etc until you're completely happy with the preview then save it as a PDF with a single click from the toolbar.

You can also choose to keep your spreadsheet in native Excel format or save it as a LibreOffice format file (which uses the Open Document format).

Couldn't be any easier. 

[Cathymjp]

Hi, and thank you all very much for your help.  I did contact a nephew of mine and he suggested that I download PDF24 printer driver.  I did this and managed to save it to A3 as advised.  The family tree has printed out well,  and is now about seven feet long but is all on one tree so I am very pleased with it.  Thank you Paul for showing me how to use LibreOffice.  I am so pleased that the problem is now solved and the end result looks so impressive.  I thought that I might have to start again on another package which filled me with dread. 

Cathy

[Nick_Ips]

That's a big family tree Cathy 

If you have to repeat the process in future you might get even better results by selecting a paper size of A1 or A0 - most PDF file 'printers' will let you go up to this kind of size.

By using A3 size the printing company is having to 'stretch' the PDF to fit the paper size they are actually using. Whilst PDF's generally stretch quite well, if you start with a PDF sized at A1 or A0 there is less stretching required to fit to the paper size. As you originally discovered, going from A4 to A0 (or larger if you ended up with 7 feet) produced a poor result, so although A3 was good, you may find A1 is even better 

Edited to add:

If you are using Paul's technique with LibreOffice you may find that A3 is the largest 'A' size listed, but there should be a 'User' option which allows you to specify the exact size of the page which can be at least A1.

[Cathymjp]

Thank you for that very useful information Paul. I am making some more additions to it for my distant cousin as he is putting living relatives on the bottom of it now.  I will try A1 or AO and see how that works.  Very grateful for all the teccie help. 

Cathy