Print Gridlines on a Blank / Empty Sheet in Excel & Google Sheets

This tutorial demonstrates how to print gridlines on a blank sheet in Excel and Google Sheets.

Print Gridlines on a Blank Sheet

By default, Excel won’t print anything if the sheet is completely blank. If you go to File > Print (or use the keyboard shortcut CTRL + P), you’ll see that there is no print preview, as Excel considers a sheet without any value a blank sheet.

To print gridlines on an empty sheet, follow these steps:

1. In the Ribbon, go to Page Layout > Page Setup (in the bottom-right corner of the Page Setup section).

2. In the Page Setup window, go to the Sheet tab, check Gridlines in the Print section, and click OK.

3. Now set up a print area. Select the range of cells and in the Ribbon, go to Page Layout > Print Area > Set Print Area.

4. Finally, if you go back to File > Print, you can see, in Print Preview, that the selected area is printed with gridlines.

5. If you populate some cells in the selected print area, again all cells (blank and populated) are printed with gridlines.

Print Gridlines on a Blank Sheet in Google Sheets

If you want to print the gridline on a blank sheet in Google Sheets, follow these steps:

1. 1. Select the range of cells where you want to print gridlines (here, A1:E10).

2. In the Menu, go to File > Print (or use the keyboard shortcut CTRL + P).

3. In the Print options section on the right side, choose Selected cells (A1:E10) under Print, expand Formatting and check Show gridlines, and click Next.

As a result, you can see in the print preview, that gridlines are printed, even though the selected cells are blank.