Convert Excel to PDF

Two routes to the same PDF

Excel to PDF reads an .xlsx or .xls workbook in this browser tab, draws the cells onto pages at a page setup you choose, and reopens the finished file to check it. It needs no Excel licence, no account and no upload, and it works the same on a Mac, a Windows machine or a Chromebook.

Excel's own export writes the PDF from each sheet's print settings, and it stays the right route when the workbook carries charts, images or conditional formatting, because those are drawn by Excel and not by the browser tool. Both routes are below: the browser first, then the Windows and Mac dialogues.

What the browser converter draws

The reader takes the values a workbook stores and the properties that decide how they look: font, size, weight, colour, fill, alignment, wrapping, borders and merged ranges. Paper, orientation and margins start from the sheet's own print settings, so a workbook laid out for A4 landscape converts that way without a click. Gridlines, row and column labels and page numbers are each a switch.

It does not recalculate. A formula prints the value the workbook last saved for it, which is the value Excel itself would print without opening the file. Charts, images, shapes, comments, pivot tables and conditional formatting are not drawn, and the page says so before you convert. The pages use the fonts every PDF reader carries, which cover Western European Latin, so a workbook in Cyrillic, Greek or CJK is refused with an error rather than printed as rows of empty boxes.

Nothing is trusted on the way out. The new PDF is opened again with an independent reader, every page is rendered, and the cell text is compared with what was drawn, page by page and in order, before the download appears.

Excel prints; it does not convert

Word exports the whole document because a document has one flow. A spreadsheet has no edges. Excel has to decide where each sheet stops and how it breaks into pages, and it uses the print settings to do it. Every surprise in an Excel PDF, the missing sheet, the orphan column, the tiny text, traces back to a print setting that was never set.

So treat the export as a print job. Get the preview right, and the PDF will be right. The three settings that matter are the print area, the sheet selection, and the scaling.

Print area and page breaks

Without a print area Excel exports every cell with content or formatting, including a stray note in cell Z200 that drags the PDF out to a dozen blank-looking pages. Select the block that matters and set the print area from the Page Layout tab. To export two blocks from one sheet, hold Control while selecting the second and Excel puts each on its own page.

View, Page Break Preview draws the page edges over the cells. Drag a blue line to move a break. A dashed line is where Excel will cut on its own; a solid line is one you placed. For a table that spills one column over, Fit an Excel sheet on one PDF page has the scaling fix.

One sheet or the whole workbook

On Windows, File, Export, Create PDF/XPS opens a save dialogue with an Options button. Under Publish what, Active sheets exports the sheet you are on, or several if you selected their tabs with Control held. Entire workbook exports every visible sheet in tab order, each with its own page setup. Hidden sheets are skipped either way. Selection exports only the highlighted cells, ignoring the print area.

On a Mac, File, Save As with PDF as the format shows a Sheet or Workbook choice at the bottom. There is no multi-sheet selection there, so to export three sheets of six, hide the other three first or export them one at a time and combine them with Merge PDF, which reopens the result and checks the page count in this tab.

How to change Excel to PDF in landscape or on one page

Orientation is a per-sheet setting under Page Layout. A wide table almost always wants landscape, and a long list wants portrait. Under Scale to Fit, setting Width to 1 page and Height to Automatic keeps every column on each page and lets the rows run on. Setting both to 1 page shrinks the whole sheet onto a single page, which is right for a summary and unreadable for a ledger.

Excel to PDF in landscape covers the orientation cases, including a PDF already exported the wrong way round.

Gridlines, headers and hyperlinks

Gridlines you see on screen do not print unless Page Layout, Sheet Options, Gridlines, Print is ticked. Cell borders always print. Row and column headings print only with their own tick box. Page Layout, Print Titles repeats a header row at the top of every page, which a ten-page export needs. Headers and footers, including Page &[Page] of &[Pages], are set per sheet in Page Setup.

Hyperlinks in cells survive the Windows and Mac export as clickable links. Comments print only if Page Setup, Sheet, Comments is set to At end of sheet or As displayed. Formulas are replaced by their values, and the text of every cell stays selectable in the PDF.

XLS, XLSX and files without Excel

An XLS file from Excel 97 to 2003 opens in any current Excel and exports through the same dialogue as an XLSX. LibreOffice Calc opens both and exports PDF from its File menu, with the same print area logic, and its command line converts a folder of workbooks in one go. Google Sheets exports PDF from File, Download, with a settings panel that covers scaling, orientation and sheet choice.

Excel to PDF reads both formats here with nothing installed, which is the shorter path on a machine that has no Office on it at all. Neighbouring guides, including the formatting checks in Excel to PDF without losing formatting, are under PDF, Word and Excel help.