Thursday 5 January 2017

Exporting Excel charts as PDFs

To export an Excel chart as a PDF is simple enough. Select the chart you want to export and go to File > Save As. Pick a save location and make sure the file type is PDF. Now you have a PDF that contains a vector version of your chart.

However, you'll most likely have a lot of white space surrounding your chart. You can either crop it manually using whatever tool you can find, or you can follow the steps I found here:
  1. File > Print - Change the printer to a virtual one  (I recommend Microsoft XPS Document Writer). We're not actually going to use this printer, but it allows us to save the chart without printer margins (which are separate from the page layout margins in step 3)
  2. Select the chart
  3. Page Layout > Margins - set them all to 0
  4. Page Layout > Orientation - make sure it's right orientation
  5. Page Layout > Size - pick a paper size that's close to your chart size
    1. If you can't find a page size that's close enough you'll probably have to resize your chart to match a paper size
  6. (Optional) Right click your chart and change the chart outline to "No Outline"
  7. File > Save As - Save it as a PDF