How to Save Excel as PDF:
Single Sheet or Entire File (2024)

Are you tired of sending Excel files that can be easily edited by anyone? Do you need to share your data securely?

Converting your Excel file to a PDF format can be the solution to this problem! 😀

In this tutorial, you will learn how to save an Excel file as a PDF in just a few simple steps. And ensure that your data stays safe and secure.

So without further ado, let’s get started.

If you want to practice along the guide, download our sample workbook here.

Save active sheet as PDF

You can easily save an active Excel sheet as PDF, and we’ll show you how to do just that.

Say, we have some sample data on a sheet 📑

Instead of the whole workbook, we only want the active sheet to be saved as PDF.

To do that,

1. Select the active sheet by clicking on it.

2. Go to the File Tab.

3. Select Export

4. Click Create PDF/XPS.

5. The Publish As PDF or XPS dialog box appears.
6. Under the Save as type, there are two optimization options. You can select either the standard or minimum size.

7. Click the Options button under Optimize for.
8. An Options dialog box will appear.

9. Select Active Sheets under the Publish what section.

10. Press Ok.
11. Click Publish.

Your Excel document has been saved as a PDF file now 🤩

Pro Tip!

You can do the same using the Save As option. Go to File tab > Save As > Browse. On the Save As dialog box, select PDF from Save as type and click Options under Optimize for. The rest of the steps are the same.

Save selected sheets as PDF

Similar to the method above, you can also save selected sheets as a PDF.

To do that,

1. Select the sheets from the Sheet Tab.

If you want to select all sheets, select the 1st sheet, hold Shift, and select the last sheet. If you want to select non-adjacent sheets, press CTRL and click the sheets you want to select.

2. Go to File Tab > Export > Create PDF/XPS.

3. The dialog box will appear.
4. Click Options.
5. Select Selection under the Publish what option as:

6. Press Ok > Publish.

This will save all the selected sheets as PDFs 🥳

Pro Tip!

Make sure to checkmark the ‘Open file after publishing’ option. This will immediately open the PDF document as you finish publishing.

Save entire file as PDF

Last but not least, let’s convert an entire Excel workbook to a PDF file. The steps are the same as seen above.

To convert the Excel file into PDF,

1. Go to File tab > Export > Create PDF/XPS.

2. The dialog box will appear.
3. Click Options under the Save as type.

4. Select Entire workbook under Publish what.

5. Press Ok > Publish.

The entire workbook will be converted to a PDF file directly 🥇

Isn’t it easy? Try it for yourself using the sample workbook provided.

That’s it – Now what?

In this article, we saw how to save an Excel file as a pdf. We saw how to save the entire file as a pdf as well as selected sheets only.

Both tasks are easy and only take a couple of seconds. You should be able to master it once you practice it once or twice 💪

You can do this with all other MS applications, as this feature is available in all of them. But one fantastic feature no other MS application has is functions.

Excel has over 400 amazing functions and our favorites include IF, SUMIF, and VLOOKUP. You can learn them for free in my 30-minute free email course.

It teaches these fantastic functions and a lot more. So sign up now! 🚀

Other resources

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Frequently asked questions