How to Remove Page Break Lines in Excel: A Step-by-Step Guide

Excel allows you to insert page breaks for printing purposes. But sometimes those page break lines end up cluttering your spreadsheet when viewing it on screen.

Luckily, Excel makes it easy to toggle page break lines on and off Read on to learn how to remove pesky page break lines in Excel with just a few clicks.

What Are Page Breaks in Excel?

Page breaks in Excel mark where one print page ends and the next begins when printing your spreadsheet

Inserting your own manual page breaks lets you control how your data prints by splitting it across pages intelligently. You can also set page break orientation, scaling, and numbering options.

By default, Excel shows dotted page break lines on screen so you can preview the pagination But if you don’t need them for a particular spreadsheet, these lines can appear distracting and clutter up the cells.

Fortunately, you can quickly hide page break lines in Excel while keeping the actual page breaks intact for printing.

Why Remove Page Break Lines in Excel?

Hiding page break lines clears up on-screen clutter, especially in spreadsheets not intended for printing. Other reasons you may want to remove them include:

• Less visual noise – Eliminates dotted lines for a cleaner look.

• Focus on data – Removes unnecessary formatting emphasis.

• Smaller frozen panes – Lets more rows/columns fit without scrolling if freezing panes.

• Simpler screenshots – Captures don’t include extraneous page break lines.

• No draft print formatting – View as plain data without print pagination.

• Performance boost – Fewer drawing elements to render improves spreadsheet performance.

• Personal preference – Some users simply don’t like how page break lines look.

In short, hiding page break lines declutters the spreadsheet and focuses on the data. You can still print properly paginated results.

How to Remove Page Break Lines in Excel

Removing page break lines only takes a few clicks:

1. Click the File tab and select Options.

2. In the Excel Options dialog, click Advanced on the left.

3. Under Display options for this worksheet, uncheck Show page breaks.

4. Click OK to apply the change.

That’s it! The dotted page break lines will immediately disappear from your spreadsheet.

While hidden on screen, your manual page breaks will still take effect when printing. It’s just cosmetic formatting to tidy up the view.

Alternative Ways to Hide Page Breaks

In addition to the Excel Options method above, you can also quickly toggle page break lines on and off using these shortcuts:

• Ctrl + Shift + W – Hotkey to show/hide page breaks.

• Page Layout tab – Click View > Show > Page Break Preview to toggle view mode with page breaks on or off.

• Status bar – Right-click the status bar at the bottom and check/uncheck View Page Breaks to show or hide.

• Excel Options method (permanent setting)

• Ctrl+Shift+W hotkey

• Page Break Preview view toggle

• Status bar menu toggle

Use whichever approach works best for your workflow.

Clearing Specific Page Breaks

The above options simply toggle displaying all page break lines on or off. But what if you want to delete specific page breaks?

To remove individual page breaks while keeping others intact:

1. Select the cells with the unnecessary page break.

2. Go to Page Layout > Breaks > Remove Page Break.

This will clear only that exact page break while retaining any others.

You can also right-click and choose Delete Page Break from the context menu.

To remove all page breaks at once, go to Page Layout > Breaks > Reset All Page Breaks.

When Not to Remove Page Breaks

Some cases where you may want to leave page break lines enabled:

• Actively designing/tweaking print pagination and layouts

• Referring to breaks when writing formulas for printed output

• Sharing spreadsheets where recipients will print

• Printing or converting to PDF yourself

• Using page numbers, headers, footers, margins, or other print settings

• Freezing panes that span multiple pages

So if print formatting is important, leave the page break lines visible for easy reference while tweaking.

Customizing Page Break Display

If you want page breaks but find the default dotted lines distracting, you can customize their appearance:

• Color – Change color to something subtle like gray if black is too bold.

• Style – Pick dashed, solid, or dotted lines.

• Width – Make page break lines thinner so they stand out less.

• Cell borders – Add borders around the cells to visually override break lines.

To modify page break formatting, right-click the lines and choose Format Page Breaks from the context menu.

There you can fine tune colors, styles, and width to your liking.

When Printing Pages Breaks

Remember, hiding page break lines in Excel is just a cosmetic change. All your defined breaks and print settings still apply when actually printing the spreadsheet or saving as PDF.

The only difference is page break lines don’t display on screen when hidden. Print results remain paginated the same way.

So don’t worry about removing lines interfering with printing. The pagination will be fully intact and unaltered.

Troubleshooting Hidden Page Breaks Not Reappearing

Sometimes page break lines fail to reappear after being toggled off, even when using the show/hide hotkeys and commands.

If your hidden page break lines refuse to come back, try these fixes:

• Close and reopen the Excel file. Hidden page breaks often redraw properly after a restart.

• Resize the columns widths with drag handles. Forcing a redraw makes page breaks show again.

• Save as a new file copy – corrupted formatting can prevent page breaks from redisplaying.

• If all else fails, insert page breaks manually again from the Page Layout tab.

Following a recalculation or redraw should make hidden page breaks visible again in most cases.

Final Takeaways

The ability to quickly show and hide Excel page break lines provides helpful flexibility:

• Keep breaks enabled when actively printing/paginating.

• Hide lines to reduce on-screen clutter when focusing on data.

• Toggle visibility anytime with hotkeys like Ctrl+Shift+W.

• Remove only specific breaks you don’t need individually.

Take control of pesky dotted lines to optimize the view for your task at hand. Excel offers all the tools you need to show, hide, or delete page breaks with just a few clicks.

No more noisy lines cluttering up tables and formulas – hide them to highlight what matters. Just be sure to show page breaks again before final printing or converting to PDF.

With this simple page break trick, you can focus on your data while retaining print-ready pagination. Get the best of both worlds for on-screen and printed results!