How to convert Excel to PDF — without breaking tables and formulas.

Excel to PDF feels trivial until you actually need it — then 5 things can go wrong. The table breaks in half, colours fade, charts become low-res frozen images, or (worst) multiple sheets become one sheet without titles.

What to check BEFORE conversion

Our tool uses LibreOffice on the server. LibreOffice honours the Page Setup defined inside the Excel file. In other words — what you set in Excel is what you get. Key settings:

• Orientation: Landscape for wide tables, Portrait for narrow ones.
• Print Area: mark exactly which cells go into the PDF (Page Layout → Print Area → Set).
• Scale to Fit: "Fit all columns on one page" is usually enough.
• Headers/Footers: if you want a date and page number on every sheet — set it in Excel, not in our tool.

Multiple sheets in one PDF

If your Excel file has multiple sheets (e.g., "January", "February", "March" tabs), our tool includes them all in one PDF — with separate Page Setup for each sheet. Each sheet keeps its own page size.

If you want a sheet NOT in the PDF, hide it in Excel before converting (right click on tab → Hide).

What about formulas

PDF is not Excel — formulas are not preserved. But computed values are. When you open the PDF, you will see numbers, but NOT =SUM(A1:A10). That is normal and matches what a PDF is — a photocopy in digital form.

Colours and conditional formatting

Anything visible in Excel as cell colour, font colour, conditional formatting icons — all goes into the PDF as a snapshot of that state. If you rely on contrast (e.g., red/green for negative/positive), make sure contrast is also clear in black-and-white printing (some people will print your PDF).

What to do after conversion

PDF from Excel often stays large (multiple MB). If you are sending by email, run it through our PDF compression — you can get a 50-70% smaller file without visible quality loss.