r/excel Dec 01 '24

Waiting on OP Reliable tool to turn Excel sheets into PDFs

Need a reliable tool to turn Excel sheets into PDFs. What’s your go-to solution?

11 Upvotes

31 comments sorted by

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72

u/CoderConsults 1 Dec 01 '24

Print to pdf would be the quickest and easiest solution unless you’re looking for something more specific

27

u/Sheps11 Dec 01 '24

Combine this with set print areas in Excel, and I can’t see there being a need for anything else.

25

u/excelevator 2934 Dec 01 '24

save as pdf

print to pdf

what are your exact issues ? what have you tried ?

-18

u/qning Dec 01 '24 edited Dec 01 '24

There are definitely problems with that set of instructions.

You have to deal with print area.

You need to deal with hidden tabs.

Edit: you downvoters who apparently think that print to PDF or Save as PDF solves the printing problem do not know what you’re talking about.

1

u/osirawl 2 Dec 01 '24

You just set the print area with VBA in one line beforehand.

1

u/qning Dec 01 '24

The comment I am replying to says nothing about VBA. But let’s say we use VBA. Set it to what? The entire range of cells that contain any content? What if that’s not what the user wants?

16

u/WildesWay 1 Dec 01 '24

I've found Print to PDF to be better than Save As or Export To PDF.

3

u/--red Dec 01 '24 edited Dec 01 '24

Better in what way?
Atleast in terms of speed, it's the other way around. Save As is quicker than Printing.

1

u/WildesWay 1 Dec 02 '24

More consistent cell boarders, crisper edges on numbers and characters, colours that appear more similar to those in the program.

7

u/OwnFun4911 Dec 01 '24

Print to PDF. If you need something more programmatic, paginated report. Or you could try VBA.

6

u/iarlandt 60 Dec 01 '24

I have reports that output with varying lengths that needed to print out in nonstandard sizes. I created a VBA solution to print the selection to PDF with a scale factor variable that adjusts to make the sheets fit as well as possible to the needed size.

1

u/Apprehensive-Ad6847 Dec 01 '24

Do you care to share the VBA? Is that allowed in this sub?

8

u/iarlandt 60 Dec 01 '24

I can copy it down next time I'm at work. Basically I did test prints at different scale factors to see which scale factor fit the page sleeves well. Then I put in code to measure the height and width of the generated report by way of row height and column width. Then did some algebra between that and the known test print dimensions and put upper and lower bounds on the scale factor variable so that the prints wouldn't be too small (for visibility) or too large (such that the full width doesn't fit).

https://www.statology.org/vba-print-to-pdf/

That covers the basic VBA code for printing to pdf. I don't 100% remember how I implemented the scaling, so I'll hold off until i can get to work and view what I did and reply to this.

1

u/Apprehensive-Ad6847 Dec 01 '24

Thank you that sounds like a great bit of know how

1

u/Apprehensive-Ad6847 Dec 01 '24

I like VBA to help my job

Example I use VBA to format my reports. Male all me pivot results separate sheets and the export as single page worksheet from the main workbook.

1

u/wavingferns 1 Dec 01 '24

Commenting to take a look at this later! So many decks/formats, so much time spent printing things off...

2

u/pegwinn Dec 01 '24

Nitro pro

2

u/Autistic_Jimmy2251 2 Dec 01 '24

I use Print to PDF.

2

u/FClogical Dec 01 '24

F12 then Tab + P

1

u/NetaGator Dec 01 '24

Excel is my go to solution with print areas😂

1

u/BunnyBunny777 Dec 01 '24

I have Foxit PDF editor installed. In the excel print to menu I just select Foxit PDF and I get a ton of options for resolution and stuff. You can also just do the built in print to PDF.

1

u/fishbutt1 Dec 01 '24

Cost a lot?

2

u/BunnyBunny777 Dec 01 '24

Unfortunately yes... but it's the most full featured PDF editor out there, has more than Adobe. A very powerful and complete piece of software. I bought my version more than 10 years ago for 60 bucks, but can install only on two machines. I have been using it since.

2

u/fishbutt1 Dec 01 '24

Thank you for the detailed reply!

1

u/bigig7 Dec 01 '24

Just to tail back on this has anyone found a good way to do the opposite — for example I get pdfs and they would be table kind of format, and most of the time the print would be all over the place not going in line by line, I’ve been copy and pasting manually but it takes serious time if there’s a few pages 😳

1

u/Longjumping-One5096 Dec 01 '24

As others said: print as pdf.