Excel for Marketing Managers

Printing Grid Paper

Printing
Grid Paper

Isometric Grid Sheets....................................................................................................

An isometric grid sheet allows you to make an XYZ coordinate grid or a sketch

pad for making isometric (3D) drawings. Usually, an isometric drawing

involves the use of three axes, each 120° apart. However, the grids in Excel are

designed to be horizontal and vertical only. The technique to make this type of

drawing involves an old trick I discovered many years ago for doing 3D

drawings on a two-dimensional CAD program.

You will need to set up row and column sizes so that the diagonal distance

across a cell is twice the row height. This will mean that the area inside of a

cell is made from two 30-60-90 right triangles. Remember that the hypotenuse

of such a triangle (the diagonal of the cell) is twice the length of the smallest

leg (the height of the cell). In isometric drawings, the length and depth of an

object are laid out along two lines drawn at 30° to the horizon. You won’t be

able to get this exactly, but a row height of 15 pixels and a column width of 26

pixels will give a diagonal length of 30.0167, which is close enough for

sketching purposes!

Note:

After changing the grid size, it is important to do a Print Preview, and then adjust

the File → Print Area → Set Print Area to include just the range that will fit on

the first page.