Excel Page Break Dotted Lines: How to Turn Them Off

To hide page-break dotted lines in Excel for Microsoft 365 on Windows, select the affected worksheet, then go to File > Options > Advanced. Under Display options for this worksheet, clear Show page breaks and select OK. This hides the lines on that worksheet; it does not remove page breaks or change how the sheet prints.

Why Excel shows dotted page-break lines

Excel divides a worksheet into pages when it prepares a printout. The dotted lines in Normal view mark where Excel currently expects one printed page to end and the next to begin. They are guides for the worksheet’s print layout, not cell borders or marks that have been added to the data.

The lines often appear after you open Print Preview, print the worksheet, or use Page Break Preview. Excel has worked out where the content will fall on printed pages, so it can show those boundaries when you return to the worksheet. If you have never intentionally set a page break, the lines are usually automatic breaks calculated from the sheet’s size and print settings.

Automatic page boundaries can move when you change the paper size, orientation, margins, scaling, printer, or the amount of content in a sheet. As a result, a dotted line is not necessarily a permanent division at a particular row or column. It represents the current print layout, which can change as the layout changes.

Turn off the lines in Excel for Windows

Use the worksheet-specific display setting if you want to keep working in Normal view without seeing page-break guides:

Click the worksheet tab that has the dotted lines. The setting applies to the selected sheet, so check the active tab before changing it.
Select File > Options.
In the Excel Options window, select Advanced.
Scroll to Display options for this worksheet. If the drop-down list names a different sheet, choose the worksheet you want to adjust.
Clear Show page breaks, then select OK.

The dotted lines should disappear from the selected worksheet in Normal view. Repeat the steps for another sheet if its page-break lines also need hiding. This is a display preference, not a deletion command: it leaves the worksheet’s content and print setup intact.

If you only want to leave the page-break editing screen, select View > Normal on the ribbon. That returns the sheet to its usual grid view. It may not hide dotted automatic breaks in Normal view, however; for those, turn off Show page breaks as described above.

Hide lines on a Mac or in Excel for the web

Excel for Mac has a similar display preference, although the names and placement can vary slightly between releases. Select the worksheet, open the Excel menu, then choose Preferences or Settings and look under View for the Page breaks option. Clear it if available. If the menu is arranged differently in your build, use Excel’s search field to look for page-break display settings.

Excel for the web does not provide the same Windows File > Options > Advanced control. If you are editing in a browser, return to the normal worksheet view if you are looking at a print-related view. For more precise page-break display and print-layout controls, open the workbook in the desktop Excel app. Changing the display of page breaks is separate from changing the workbook’s print settings.

Hide the lines or remove a page break?

Hiding page-break guides and removing a page break solve different problems. Hide the guides when they distract you but you still want Excel to paginate the sheet normally. Remove a break when you have manually inserted one and want Excel to choose the page boundary again.

To remove a manually inserted break, first select a cell below a horizontal break or to the right of a vertical break. Then select Page Layout > Breaks > Remove Page Break. To clear manual breaks from the active worksheet, select Page Layout > Breaks > Reset All Page Breaks. These commands affect pagination; they do not simply conceal the guides.

Excel also inserts automatic breaks based on the print layout. You cannot remove an automatic break in the same way as a manually inserted one. Instead, adjust the layout—for example, change scaling, paper orientation, or margins—or use the display option to hide the guides. Resetting all page breaks clears manual breaks, but Excel still calculates automatic ones.

Check what will actually print

A dotted line on the worksheet does not mean that Excel will print a dotted line across the page. It is a screen guide indicating a page boundary. To see the expected printed pages, open File > Print and inspect the preview. Print Preview is more useful than the grid alone for checking whether columns fit, whether a table splits across pages, and whether content is missing from the print area.

If the preview shows an unwanted split, review the settings that control pagination rather than merely hiding the guides. Useful checks include:

Orientation: In Page Layout > Orientation, try Landscape for a wide table.
Paper size: In Page Layout > Size, choose the paper size that matches the printer or intended output.
Margins: In Page Layout > Margins, select a suitable preset or adjust the available margins.
Scaling: In the Page Layout ribbon’s Scale to Fit controls, adjust width, height, or scale. Fit-to-page settings can shrink text substantially, so inspect the preview before printing.
Print area: Select the intended cells and use Page Layout > Print Area > Set Print Area if Excel is including unwanted surrounding cells.

For example, a wide sales table may show a vertical page-break line between the last two month columns. Hiding the line will make the grid less cluttered, but it will not make all months appear on one printed page. Switching to Landscape or fitting the sheet to one page wide may change the printed result; check whether the resulting text remains readable.

Page Break Preview and Normal view

Normal is the standard worksheet view for entering and reviewing data. Page Break Preview, available from View > Page Break Preview, emphasizes how the sheet is divided into printed pages. In that view, page boundaries are prominent and can generally be adjusted by dragging them. The appearance of those boundaries differs from the dotted guides shown in Normal view.

If the sheet looks enlarged, dimmed, or divided into pages with labels, you may be in Page Break Preview rather than seeing only dotted lines in Normal view. Select View > Normal to leave that view. If dotted boundaries remain, turn off Show page breaks in Excel Options. These are two separate actions: one changes the worksheet view, while the other controls whether page-break guides show in Normal view.

Page Layout view is another option on the View tab. It displays a closer representation of printed pages, including page margins and headers or footers. Use it when you need to inspect page layout; use Normal view for routine data work. Neither view choice by itself changes the underlying cell values.

Common reasons the lines return

If the guides reappear, first confirm that the setting was changed for the correct worksheet. A workbook can have many sheets, and the Excel Options section identifies which worksheet’s display options are being edited. Also check whether you are looking at a different sheet or have switched to Page Break Preview.

Another possibility is that the workbook has been reopened or is being viewed in a different Excel environment. Page-break display preferences and available controls can behave differently across desktop versions and the web app. If the lines are visible only on one sheet, repeat the worksheet-specific setting there. If they appear in Page Break Preview, return to Normal view before deciding whether the Normal-view guides also need disabling.

Do not confuse page-break guides with gridlines. Gridlines form the regular cell grid across the worksheet and can be toggled from View > Gridlines. Page-break guides are irregular boundaries that indicate print pagination. Turning off gridlines will not hide page-break lines, and hiding page breaks will not remove borders that have been formatted onto cells.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do dotted page-break lines print?
No. In Normal view, the dotted lines are on-screen guides showing where pages divide. They are not printed as dotted rules. Use File > Print to check the actual output.

Will turning off page breaks change my printout?
No. Clearing Show page breaks hides the guides; it does not change the print area, page breaks, scaling, margins, or paper size. Adjust those settings separately if the printed pages need to change.

How do I get the dotted lines back?
Select the relevant worksheet, go to File > Options > Advanced, choose that sheet under Display options for this worksheet, and select Show page breaks. On Mac, look for the page-break option under Excel’s View preferences or settings.

Why does Excel show a page break even when I did not add one?
Excel creates automatic page breaks from the worksheet’s print layout. A break can appear after printing or viewing Print Preview even if you never inserted a manual break. The automatic boundary may move when the sheet or print settings change.

How can I make a worksheet fit on one printed page?
Use the Page Layout scaling controls or the scaling options in the Print screen, then inspect Print Preview. Fitting a large worksheet to one page can make its text too small to read, so fitting it to one page wide while allowing several pages tall may be a better choice.

Are page-break lines the same as cell borders?
No. Page-break lines mark print-page boundaries, while borders are formatting applied to cells. If a line remains after hiding page breaks, check the cell’s border formatting or gridline display instead.

Try it: the Date Difference Calculator: days, months, years and weekdays between two dates, with the DATEDIF formulas.

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Sources: Function behaviour and menu paths: Microsoft Support documentation for Excel. Method & sources

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