resizing a part of a sheet in excel (excel 2003)

[sheila1]

Hi I wonder if anyone can advise... I have an excel sheet with default width; I need to resize part of a sheet so that the data within it comes within the page size. However the rest of the sheet must remain at default size; the part I need fit the columns in, is in the middle of the page... if this was Word, I'd use section breaks but i can't find anything like that on Excel - if someone could let me know ASAP that'd be great - thanks very much

[HansV]

Although you can set the column width for each column individually, you cannot change the width of part of a column only. Column width always applies to an entire column.

You may be able to accomplish what you want by merging cells horizontally. If you'd like more help, please provide detailed information about what you want.

[sheila1]

Thanks Hans; There's a lot of information on the page which is the width of the excel sheet.
In the middle of the spreadsheet are cols 1 -7 which overlap the page width and I need to pull these in to the page without affecting the rest of the width of the sheet.. does that explain it properly? Thanks

[HansV]

Is the information that is the width of the page (?) in column A? If so, try the following:
- Select A1:G1.
- Select Format | Cells...
- Activate the Alignment tab.
- Tick the check box Merge Cells.
- Click OK.
- Select A2:G2.
- Selecting Edit | Repeat Format or pressing Ctrl+Y will merge the cells.
- Repeat as needed.
- Adjust the widths of columns A through G.

If that doesn't do what you want, could you attach a copy of your workbook with dummy text and indicate what you want to accomplish?

[sheila1]

Thanks very much for your suggestions hans - managed to rearrange the headings and this brought the column in enough to get the sheet on 1 page - apologies for delay in responding. Very much appreciate your offer of having a look at a "dummy" sheet - thanks again for your advice