I’ve had a couple of comments regarding my recent post, Printing and Print Preview in Microsoft Word 2010. I thought I’d take the opportunity to talk about the finer (possibly more obscure) points of printing ranges in Microsoft Word 2010.
If you’re talking about printing parts of a document with no section breaks, it’s pretty straightforward. To print the range of pages 1 through 3 of your document, in the Pages: section of the settings area, type 1-3. In Microsoft Word 2010, it will look like this:
In earlier Microsoft Word versions, you’d enter the page range in the Print dialog box:
To print individual, non-consecutive pages, you’d separate the page numbers with commas; e.g. 1, 3, 5 would print the first, third and fifth pages of a document.
Printing Sections
The challenge comes when your document has section breaks in it. For example, when you complete a mail merge and opt to save it in a new document instead of printing the whole thing out, Word inserts a Next Page Section Break after each of the merges. So, your one page letter to 30 recipients becomes a document with 30, one page sections. To print out the first 3 pages of your merge document, you need to specify the page and section; e.g. p1s1-p1s3 (you could also just indicate the sections you want as s1-s3).
What Section am I In?
You can find out where you are in a document by clicking in that part of the document and looking at the Status Bar at the bottom of the window. Microsoft Word 2010 and 2007 do not, by default, display the section and section page. To show this information:
- Right click on the Status Bar.
- Select the first two options (Formatted Page Number and Section).
To determine your print range:
- Click where you want to start the printing and note the page and section number in the status bar.
- Scroll to the last page you want to include and click on that page. Note that page and section number.
- Select the Print option on the File tab (or press Ctrl-P).
- Enter your range using the format p#s#-p#s#.
- Click Print.
If you want to read the official Microsoft version of this see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/826218
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Thank you thank you thank you! I was going nuts trying to figure out how to print specific section pages, and this explanation was very clear.
January 30th, 2012 at 2:03 pm
Excellent! Clear instructions. Short, to the point, and correct.
Yours should be an example to the rest of those who ramble on and do not present a simple format on how to perform a simple task.
Thank you very much.
BobN
February 14th, 2012 at 11:54 am
Thank you for the clear instructions that highlights the stuningly bad new implementation of this simple feature. Selecting “Print” shows a preview with a page number that Word cannot actually use in range of pages to print. Brilliant!!
July 30th, 2012 at 1:13 pm
I have a document that has many sections and I am trying to print the document double-sided; but some of my sections are not printing out with the Page 1 of the section on the correct page – it is printing on the back of the last page of the previous section. What needs to be between each section to have the page 1 of each section printing on the correct page?
February 1st, 2013 at 10:18 am
Thank You for the easy instructions to read and follow! Printing large documents and then needing to reprint only a few pages out of one section has always been a struggle. Some people who post deem it more necessary to try and impress by babbling on and not examples. Thanks again!
February 22nd, 2013 at 3:11 pm