convert xls to pdf keeping the native format

[fbao]

Hi, I'm working on a project in which users can view kinds of native files (office files, images, emails and so on) and make annotations on a website. Most of the files can be converted to pdf before being viewed. I know I should use the driver to convert files in my program, however, I used Office2PDF to convert some office files first to see the effect of convertion. I found that a xls file was converted to a pdf but lost its original format, not in a format of table or sheet, but one column after another.

Is there a way to convert xls to pdf while keeping its native format? Any reply is appreciated.

[John - Tracker Supp]

Hi,

Not sure to be honest what is happening - could you please put both the xls and resulting PDF file in a zip file and upload and also advise which version of Excel is being used.

Thanks

[fbao]

Thanks for your so quick reply,

Actually I just checked the resulting pdfs and found out that when the original sheet has a very wide column, the result pdf looks like it converts one column of the sheet first then the second, but we want all columns are listed as they are in the sheet no matter how wide a column is. Is there any solution to this?

I'm using office 2007.

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

Hi fbao,

when I look at the spread sheet in 'Print Preview' mode it shows the same thing as what PDF-XChamnge printed. Given that this is on the forum I'm sure Ivan will see this too but my question would be do you want to print to PDF in a fashion that is different fromm the print preview in Excel?

[fbao]

Thank you for your reply.

We want to see all the columns listed in one page in PDF no matter how it looks in the print preview mode, because our users need to view the excel files, try to find specific infomation and make annotations on them via Internet, so we have to convert the excel files to PDF files, and try to keep the same looking as in excel where users can view all the columns at a time.

I'm thinking maybe to set the page size large enough is a good idea, but how can this be done automatically or by programming since we have a lot of excel files?

Thanks again for your reply.

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Hi fbao,

I believe you are looking for a result like the attached file
(Just print on large enough sheets and it will happen).
Now this could use some cell formatting for ease of reading but that's another story

The example is with Landscape A3 paper selected inside Excel - our driver is taking the size from what excel tells it.
I deleted quite a few of the pages from the report as I am using a licensed driver.

Regards,
Stefan

[fbao]

Thank you very much, Stefan.

Maybe the best way is to convert excel file to html to keep all columns listed at a time, since a lot of our excel files may have more than twenty columns. Then the annotation is a problem.

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Hello fbao,

Finding the best format to export to will depend on your needs for sure, but I hope you have seen that what you initially were looking for is
possible with our printing drivers.

If you export to HTML however viewing the content on the screen will be fine but there would still be problems if your users need to print that content on paper later, as it might be even trickier to fit an HTML page on a sheet, while with the Printing driver we offer and the PDF files we create you can directly see how your export would look if printed.

Best,
Stefan

[fbao]

Thank you, Stefan.

Now we're considering to convert all the files to PDF, except excel files which are converted to MHT instead, if we can't find a way to deal with all of them. Still, annotation on the MHT file will be a problem. And our users don't need to print out the files. To view all the data as it is really helps users to make judgement.

So we'll probably use the x-change driver and viewer to convert and view most kinds of files, but now we are stuck on how to view excel files and make annotations in browser. Though it might not be related to this forum, I have to say, any suggestion will be appreciated.

Thank you very much.

Fei

[John - Tracker Supp]

Hi,

I am afraid we cannot help you with viewing XLS files - not sure if MS have a viewer available as they do for Word ...