About Excel to PDF
A spreadsheet is built to be worked in, not read on paper. Printed carelessly, it runs across pages, cuts a column in half and loses its headings. Converting to PDF fixes what you see as pages, so a reader sees a document, not a grid that rearranges itself when they scroll.
This tool turns a .xlsx, .xls, .ods or .csv file into a PDF, with the sheet laid out for printing by a real office suite. This conversion runs on our conversion service rather than in your browser, because an office suite cannot run in a web page. The file is uploaded, converted and deleted as soon as the answer has been sent back. It is free, and there is no account.
How to convert an Excel sheet to PDF
- Choose your spreadsheet. Accepted types are .xlsx, .xls, .ods and .csv.
- Press the convert button. The file is sent to the conversion service, converted and returned.
- Check the preview for where pages break. Columns that run past the page edge are the most common surprise.
- Save the PDF.
- If the page breaks are wrong, fix the print area or the page setup in the spreadsheet itself, then convert it again.
When you would use it
- Sending an invoice, quote or price list so that the numbers cannot be edited by accident.
- Sharing a report or budget with someone who does not use a spreadsheet program.
- Printing a sheet to a fixed layout for a meeting.
- Turning a CSV export into something a person can read.
- Archiving a financial statement as it stood on the day.
What it will not do
- The result is as the sheet would print. If its page setup splits a wide table over several pages, the PDF does too.
- It converts values, not formulas. A reader cannot click a cell and see how it was calculated, which is usually the point.
- All sheets in the workbook are converted as the program would print them, and very large sheets make very long PDFs.
- Workbooks over about 50 megabytes are not accepted, and only a couple of conversions can run for you at the same moment.
- It does not rebuild a spreadsheet from a PDF with the same care. PDF to Excel lifts rows and columns out of a PDF, and works best on clean tables.
How it compares
Excel’s own "Save as PDF" gives the most control, since you can set the print area, scaling and page breaks. This is for the times you do not have Excel, you only have a CSV, or you have a file from another program.
A CSV has no layout at all, so the converter chooses one. The result is usually readable, and for something to be presented you should open it in a spreadsheet, format it and convert from there.
Tips
- Set landscape and "fit all columns on one page" in the spreadsheet before converting a wide table.
- Remove columns you do not want to share before converting. The PDF will show everything the sheet prints.