Turn a workbook into a PDF that prints the way the sheet is set up: its print area, orientation, scaling and repeated heading rows, with fills, borders, fonts and page numbers. Pick the sheets, check the preview, and download.
Nothing is uploaded. Your workbook is read and the PDF is made in your browser, and neither is sent anywhere.
Excel to PDF turns an .xlsx or .xlsm workbook into a PDF in your browser, laid out as the sheet is set up to print: its print area, orientation, scaling, repeated heading rows, page breaks and footers. The usual case: a 14-column aged-debtors report goes to the auditor today, your laptop has no Excel on it, and the PDF from your first attempt has the last four columns on pages of their own.
The converter applies the print settings from Excel's Page Layout tab: print area, print titles, orientation, paper, scaling, margins and breaks. Against Excel for Mac's own PDF export of three workbooks, print areas, title rows, a manual break, hidden rows, columns and sheets, and "Page 1 of 17" numbering all matched, as did one cash-flow sheet's fills, borders and accounting alignment. Pages don't always break at the same row or column, since Excel for Mac draws default rows shorter and columns wider.
| In the sheet | In the PDF |
|---|---|
| Print area | Only that range prints. Several print areas print one after another, each on its own pages |
| No print area | The first to the last cell holding a value, a fill or a border, widened for text that runs past the last column |
| Rows to repeat at top, columns to repeat at left | On every page that doesn't already show them |
| Orientation, paper size, margins, Center on page | As set. Paper can be Letter, Legal, Tabloid, Executive, A3, A4, A5 or B5 |
| Scale (10% to 400%) or Fit to N pages wide by M tall | As set. Fit to picks the largest whole percent that fits (10% to 100%) and ignores manual breaks, like Excel |
| Manual page breaks and page order | Kept |
| Headers and footers | On every page: page number, page count, sheet and file name, date, time, all three sections and their bold, italic and size, and different first-page or odd/even versions |
| No footer at all | "Page 1 of 7" centred at the bottom |
| Fills, borders, font colour and styles, alignment, indent, wrap text, shrink to fit | Printed. Merged cells print as one cell |
| Number formats | As Excel shows them: $1,234.50, 12.5%, 02134. A formula prints its last calculated result |
| Hidden rows and columns, collapsed outline groups | Left out |
| Web and email links | Still clickable (http, https, mailto and ftp) |
Columns spill onto extra pages because the sheet is wider than a portrait page at 100%, which is what Excel uses when nobody has touched Page Layout.
This converter treats a sheet in that state as having no layout of its own. Portrait at 100% counts as no layout, because it's Excel's default and plenty of programs write it on every sheet they save. It prints portrait when its columns fit. When they don't, it prints landscape with the columns shrunk to fit across one page, down to 40%. A sheet still too wide at 40% runs on across more pages rather than shrinking into unreadable type. Manual page breaks stay where they are.
A sheet that does have its own layout (set to print in landscape, at any other scale, or with Fit to) prints as set. If it still overflows, use the Scaling box.
"Fit each sheet on one page" is the tempting choice, and on a long sheet it's the wrong one. It shrinks width and height together, so a long list comes out in type too small to read. For a transaction list or a ledger, pick "Fit all columns on one page": it shrinks only enough to get the width onto the page, and the rows carry on over as many pages as they need.
Freeze Panes keeps your header row on screen and does nothing on paper. For the header to print on page 2 onward, set it in Excel under Page Layout > Print Titles > Rows to repeat at top (for example $1:$1). This converter honours that setting, and columns to repeat at left, on every page that doesn't already show them.
Page numbers run through the whole PDF. If Summary prints three pages and Detail prints nine, Detail's first page is page 4 of 12. Excel's whole-workbook export does the same. To make each sheet start again at 1, set First page number to 1 on the Page tab of that sheet's Page Setup, and the converter follows it.
Excel prints #### when a number is too wide for its column, and nobody can widen a column in a PDF. This converter prints the number smaller so it fits, a deliberate difference from Excel's own export. The page counts each one it visibly shrank before you download, so you can widen those columns in Excel if you'd rather have every figure at full size. Only numbers get this treatment: text that isn't wrapped runs on into the empty cells beside it, as it does on screen.
In Excel for Windows, File > Save As with PDF as the type saves the active sheet by default. For every sheet, use File > Export > Create PDF/XPS, click Options and choose Entire workbook under Publish what.
Fix the layout before you export, because the PDF copies it:
Use Excel when the workbook depends on charts, pictures or conditional formatting: its export prints them, in your real fonts, and this converter doesn't. The converter wins on a machine without Excel, or on a sheet nobody ever set up for printing.
[Red] for negatives) isn't applied.Need the same sheet as a table on a web page? Excel to HTML writes it as a plain HTML table. To send each sheet as a workbook of its own instead, Split Excel by Sheet saves one .xlsx per sheet with its formatting kept.
Fit the columns to one page wide and let the rows run onto as many pages as they need. In Excel that's Page Layout > Scale to Fit, Width: 1 page, Height: Automatic. Here, pick 'Fit all columns on one page' under Scaling, and switch to printing in landscape if the text comes out too small.
Set Fit to 1 page wide by 1 page tall in Page Setup, or pick 'Fit each sheet on one page' here. On a sheet with a few hundred rows that shrinks the text until it's hard to read, so for a long list fit the columns only and let the rows continue onto more pages.
Yes. This converter reads the workbook and draws the PDF inside your browser, so the file never leaves your computer. There's no sign-up and no usage limit, and your workbook isn't changed.
Not with this converter: charts, chart sheets, pictures, shapes, text boxes and sparklines are left out, and conditional formatting isn't applied. The page counts each of them before you download. For a workbook built around charts, use File > Save As > PDF in Excel, which prints them.
Because something far below or to the right of your data still counts as part of the sheet, usually a stray fill or border. Excel prints out to the last cell holding content or formatting, and this converter prints to the last cell with a value, a fill or a border. Set a print area around the real data (Page Layout > Print Area > Set Print Area) and the extra pages go.
In Excel for Windows, go to File > Export > Create PDF/XPS, click Options, choose Entire workbook under Publish what, then click OK and Publish. Here, drop the file in: every visible sheet is ticked to start with and they all go into one PDF, while hidden sheets are listed but left unticked.
Set First page number to 1 on the Page tab of each sheet's Page Setup dialog. When you export a whole workbook, page numbers run through the whole PDF, so Sheet2 starts at page 8 if Sheet1 had 7. This converter numbers the same way and follows a first page number the sheet sets.