Excel to PDF — Without Losing the Right-Hand Columns
Drop an .xlsx and get a PDF you can actually read. The workbook is unzipped here in your browser, cell values are formatted the way the sheet formats them — dates as dates, thousands separated, percentages as percentages — and each sheet is laid out as a real table with its own column widths.
Drop .xlsx files here or click to select
Several at once is fine · nothing is uploaded
The problem with most Excel-to-PDF converters
A spreadsheet has no page size. It is a grid that runs as far right and as far down as somebody dragged it, and turning that into fixed pages requires decisions. Most converters make the laziest one: lay the grid out at its natural width and let whatever falls past the right margin disappear. You get a clean-looking PDF that is quietly missing four columns, and you find out when a colleague asks where the totals went.
This handles width in one of two explicit ways. With shrink to fit on, the columns are scaled down together so the whole sheet fits the page. With it off, the columns that do not fit continue on further pages, each labelled with the column letters it covers — so a 40-column sheet becomes a readable document rather than a truncated one. Nothing is dropped either way.
Cell values, formatted the way the sheet formats them
Excel stores a date as a number — 46023 is a day, not a quantity — and stores 0.4271
for a cell displaying 42.7%. A converter that reads the raw values gives you a page of
meaningless integers. So the number formats are read too:
- Dates and times are converted from Excel's serial numbers, including the
1900 leap-year quirk the format still carries, and printed as
2026-01-14. - Thousands separators, decimal places, currency symbols and percentages follow the cell's own format code.
- Formulas show their last calculated value, which is what the file stores and what a printed page should show. A workbook saved without cached results has nothing to print, and those cells legitimately come out blank.
- Numbers are right-aligned and text left-aligned, as in the sheet, so columns of figures still read as columns.
- Booleans and error values print as
TRUE,FALSE,#REF!and so on rather than as blanks.
Long sheets stay readable
A 600-row export becomes fifteen pages, and by page three nobody can remember which column is which. The first row is therefore repeated at the top of every page by default, exactly as Excel's own "print titles" does. Turn it off if your sheet has no header.
Hidden sheets are skipped, empty trailing rows are trimmed so you do not get pages of blank gridlines, and each sheet starts on a fresh page with its name as a heading.
How to convert Excel to PDF
- Drop your .xlsx files. Nothing is uploaded, which matters given how often a spreadsheet holds payroll, pricing or customer data.
- Pick the sheets. The dropdown fills in with the workbook's sheet names once a file is loaded; leave it on "All sheets" to convert the lot.
- Leave the orientation on landscape for anything wider than about six columns — it is the default because most spreadsheets are wider than they are tall.
- Decide how width is handled: leave shrink to fit on to squeeze everything onto the page width, or turn it off to have wide sheets continue across extra pages with the column letters labelled.
- Drop the font size to 7 or 7.5 if a dense sheet is still cramped after shrinking.
- Click Convert to PDF and check the report, which lists the page count and which sheets went in.
FAQ
How do I stop columns being cut off?
That is the default here: shrink columns to fit the page width scales the whole grid down so nothing falls off the edge. If you would rather keep the type size, turn it off and the overflow columns continue on additional pages, each labelled with the range of column letters it covers.
Will it convert all the sheets or just the first one?
All of them by default, each starting on its own page with its name as a heading. Use the dropdown to pick a single sheet instead. Hidden sheets are left out.
Do formulas work?
Their results appear. An .xlsx stores both the formula and its last calculated value, and the value is what gets printed. Nothing is recalculated — so if the workbook was written by a tool that did not cache results, those cells will be empty, and that is a property of the file rather than of the conversion.
Are dates converted properly?
Yes. Excel stores dates as day counts from an epoch that includes a 29 February 1900 that never existed; the offset is handled and dates print as YYYY-MM-DD, with the time appended when the cell's format includes one.
Are charts and images included?
No. Charts are drawing instructions built from the data rather than cell content, and rendering them faithfully is a separate project. The cell data behind a chart converts fine.
Is the text selectable in the PDF?
Yes — the output contains real PDF text, so you can select, copy and search it, and the file stays small. A workbook written in an alphabet the built-in PDF fonts cannot draw switches to page images automatically and tells you so.
Can it convert .xls or .csv?
Not .xls — that is the old binary format and needs re-saving as .xlsx first. For CSV, csvkit.org converts and cleans them.
Is my workbook uploaded?
Never. It is unzipped and rendered in your browser tab. See the privacy policy.
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