How to Convert Excel to PDF Without Cut-Off Columns

A spreadsheet is great for working with numbers, but when you send a report, a quote or an invoice, a PDF is better: it looks the same for everyone and nobody can change a figure by accident.

Convert Excel to PDF online

1. Open the Excel to PDF converter.
2. Drop your XLSX or XLS files onto the page, or click Choose Files.
3. Click Convert and download your PDFs.

No Excel needed, so it works on phones and Chromebooks too.

In Microsoft Excel

1. Choose File › Save As (or File › Export on a Mac).
2. Pick PDF as the file type.
3. Under Options, choose whether to save the active sheet or the entire workbook.

Set up the sheet first

Almost every bad Excel PDF comes from the page setup. A minute in Excel's Page Layout tab avoids it:

• Orientation: wide tables fit better in Landscape.
• Scale to fit: set Width to 1 page so columns are never split. Leave Height on Automatic.
• Print area: select only the cells you want and choose Print Area › Set Print Area.
• Print titles: under Print Titles, repeat the header row on every page of a long table.
• Gridlines: turn on Print under Gridlines if the table is hard to read without them.

These settings are saved in the file, so they're used by the online converter as well.

Check before sending

Open the PDF and scroll through it once. Look for columns on their own page, very small text from too much scaling, and blank pages from stray content far outside your table. Fix those in Excel and convert again.

Got a Word report to go with it? The Word to PDF converter works the same way.