How to repeat Columns in Excel

If your worksheet takes up more than one page when printed, you can print row and column headings (also called print titles) on every page so your data is properly labeled, making it easier to view and follow your printed data.

Open the worksheet you want to print and click the “Page Layout” tab.

In the “Page Setup” section, click “Print Titles”.

NOTE: The “Print Titles” button is grayed out if you are currently editing a cell, if you’ve selected a chart on the same worksheet, or if you don’t have a printer installed.

On the “Page Setup” dialog box, make sure the “Sheet” tab is active. Enter the range for the rows you want to repeat on every page in the “Rows to repeat at top” edit box. For example, we want the first row of our spreadsheet to repeat on all pages, so we entered “$1:$1”. If you want more than one row to repeat, for example rows 1-3, you would enter “$1:$3”. If you want to have the first column, as an example, repeat on every printed page, enter “$A:$A”.

You can also select the rows you want to repeat using the mouse. To do so, click the “Collapse Dialog” button on the right side of the “Rows to repeat at top” edit box.

The “Page Setup” dialog box shrinks to only show the “Rows to repeat at top” edit box.

To select the rows you want to repeat, move the cursor over the row numbers until it turns into a right arrow then either click on the one row you want or click and drag over multiple rows. The row range is inserted into the “Rows to repeat at top” edit box automatically. To expand the “Page Setup” dialog box, click the “Collapse Dialog” button again.

Once you’ve defined the rows and columns you want to repeat, click “OK”.

NOTE: If you have more than one worksheet selected in your workbook, the “Rows to repeat at top” and “Columns to repeat at left” boxes are grayed out and not available in the “Page Setup” dialog box. You must only have one worksheet selected. To unselect multiple worksheets, click on any other worksheet that is not selected. If all worksheets are selected, right-click on any of the selected sheets and select “Ungroup Sheets” on the popup menu.

When you use default Excel settings to print a multi-page Excel file that has row headers in the first column, readers will find it difficult to remember which information belongs to which row in the subsequent pages.

To make it easy for your readers to follow which information belongs to which row, it is important to set the column that has row headers to repeat on the left side of each page. These repeating row headers are also known as print titles.

When the print titles are set, the readers will be able to see which row headings or print titles apply to the information in the columns they see on the subsequent pages.

Print a specific column on every printed page

In this tutorial, I will show you how to locate the Page Setup menu in the Page Layout tab and define the column that you want to be repeated on the left side of each page.

Follow these steps to add print titles or row headers to the left of each page of your Excel file.

1. In the Excel file that you want to print, click the Page Layout tab at the top of the window.

1. Click the Print Titles button on the Page Layout tab.

1. On the Sheet tab In the Page Setup dialog box that appears, click on the Collapse Dialog button at the end of Columns to repeat at left box.

The collapsed Page Setup – Columns to repeat at left dialog box will appear as follows.

1. Click on the letter at the top of the column you want to be repeated on each page.

In this example, I have selected column A. See that the column reference $A:$A appears in the Columns to repeat at left dialog box.

1. Click on the Collapse Dialog button again to go back to the full Page Setup dialog box.

1. Click on the Print Preview button and scroll through a few pages to see what your printout will look like.

Scroll through a few pages to see that the left column repeats at the left of every page.

1. After confirming that the column repeats at the left of every page, go back to the Page Setup dialog box by clicking on the back arrow.

1. Click OK at the bottom of the Page Setup dialog box to conclude the configuration process.

Your spreadsheet file will now print with your selected column repeated on every page.

More information on setting columns to repeat on every page in Excel

In this tutorial, we have discussed how to repeat one column at the left of the Excel file, but you can follow the same steps to repeat many columns. You can click and drag to select many columns or you can input the values in the Columns to repeat at left box yourself.

In our example, the reference $A:$A repeats the first column. Reference $A:$B would repeat the first two columns.

How do I set columns to repeat?

How do I repeat rows and columns in Excel?

How do you set columns to repeat left?

How do I duplicate a group of columns in Excel?