Saving Excel Workbook as PDF from SharePoint document library

Question

Hello. I am experiencing some odd behavior when working with an Excel file located in a SharePoint document library and trying to save it as a PDF.

• I open an xlsx file from a document library on our company SP site.
• I highlight the section that I'd like to export to PDF.
• I choose File > Save a copy.
• I keep the location as the SP doc library.
• I change the file type to .PDF.
• I hit "More Options"
• I choose "Open File after publishing"
• I hit the "Options" button.
• I change "Publish What" to "Selection"
• I hit OK and then save.
• The PDF then opens in my PDF editor (Bluebeam).
• I make my edits to the PDF file and then save it.

What should happen is that this new PDF file should have been saved to the SP document library with my edits but this is not the case. What actually happens is that the PDF that I saved is put in my personal downloads folder which my coworkers are not able to access.

Why is it that when I choose the specific location to save the PDF, Excel puts it in my downloads folder anyhow? This is annoying and has resulted in incorrect files getting sent to people and other people not being able to locate files that they need.

Am I just doing something wrong here? Any assistance that can be provided would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Hi ChrisThomas,

Thank you for querying in this forum.

According to your description, it seems that you tried saving your Excel file as PDF file, and you want to save this PDF file to your SharePoint library instead of your personal downloads folder. And you found that it will be put in download folder when you choose the specific location to save PDF.

May I know if my understanding is right? If so, we have tested it on our side, we went to SharePoint Online and opened Excel file in Excel client, then we went to File > Save as a copy > select the SharePoint library as location directly and changed the type to .pdf > then we choose Open File after publishing and Selection, then we saved it, and PDF then opened in the browser and showed the SharePoint library location. And we went to SharePoint library and we can find this file.

On the other hand, we also tried saving this copy to the OneDrive sync folder, then this PDF was opened from PDF editor, then we edited PDF in the PDF editor, and we found the changes we edited have been synced to Online.

Given this situation, it seems that we cannot reproduce the same situation as yours, to better understand your situation, could you provide the information below?

1. May I know if you are using Excel client to save PDF file? If so, could you provide Product Information and version of your Excel? You can go to Excel > File > Account and provide the full screenshot of it.
2. May I know if you save PDF file into the OneDrive sync folder which is syncing the files from SharePoint library or SharePoint Online location directly?
3. May I know if the steps above are consistent with yours? If not, could you provide more details about your reproduce steps?
4. May I know if all files in SharePoint Online have the same problem?

Best Regards,

Sukie

Answer 2

Sorry for the delayed response. Here are answers to your questions:

1. Yes, I am using the Excel desktop client. Version is 2009 (Build 13231.20262 Click-to-Run).

2. I don't change the location when I change the file type to PDF. It already has the SP document library location of the original .xlsx file specified which appears to be saving directly to SP online.

3. In your steps, you mention that you "select the SharePoint library as location directly" which we don't do manually since the location of the existing Excel file is already selected. Also, the PDF doesn't open in the browser, it opens in Bluebeam, our default PDF application. I noticed the newly created PDF is saved directly in the SP library, which takes a few moments to download to the local computer, and its also saved to the local downloads folder.
4. Yes, all of the xlsx files that I have tested have the same problem.

Thanks.

Answer 3

Hi ChirisThomas4700,

We appreciate that you posted back and shared the detailed information with us. We also appreciate that you spent your precious time doing those tests.

We have read your description carefully, and it seems that you just saved the PDF in the same location in SharePoint library, after saving the PDF, then it will open in PDF editor instead of browser.

If so, we have tested it again without selecting location manually, and we still cannot reproduce the same situation as yours, and it will open the PDF file in the browser with SharePoint library location.

Given this situation, we assume that your browser is not allowed to open PDF, then PDF files you saved in SharePoint library will be downloaded to the local, generally, PDF editor will open the file from the local and will not open the file via going to SharePoint Online directly.

At the same time, you mentioned that you find the file in the personal download file, so we assume that your PDF have been downloaded to the local since your browser may not allow to open PDF.

Given this situation, we’d suggest you refer to the ways we provided above to use OneDrive sync client to sync your SharePoint library to the local, then you can save PDF to OneDrive sync folder, in this way, the PDF file will be synced to SharePoint Online, at the same time, you can also open the PDF in your PDF editor and edit it, and the changes will be synced to SharePoint Online. For your reference: Sync files with OneDrive in Windows.

And we have tested it on our side and it works fine. So we suggest you try the suggestion above to check if it will help you.

Please do let us know if that works for you, we’ll be glad to provide further help.

Best Regards,

Sukie

Answer 4

Hello Sukie and thanks for your response.  To clarify, the issue is the same whether I use the browser as my default PDF reader or Bluebeam. 

We're not working with the .xlsx file from Office online, we are using the full desktop version of Excel. Also, we are definitely already syncing the document library with OneDrive and that's where we open the files from. For some reason, when we save the file as a PDF, it saves one copy in the local downloads folder and one to the SharePoint doc library but the one that opens automatically after the PDF creation is the one from the local downloads folder so this is where the confusion is occurring for my users.

Thanks.

Answer 5

Hi ChrisThomas4700,

Thank you for posting back again and sharing your test results again. Thank you for your patience so far.

Per your description, it seems that you have tried set browser and Bluebeam as default browser, however, the same issue still persists. And you are using OneDrive sync folder to sync shared library. And it will be saved to SharePoint Online and another one will be downloaded to the local.

We have also tested it again, and we went to OneDrive sync folder and opened this file in Excel client, then we used the same steps above to save the file the SharePoint Online location, then the PDF will be opened in the browser(we have tried set browser and editor as default application).

We have tried different ways and we still cannot encountered the same situation as yours, so given the situation you encountered, it is strange.

To narrow down this issue is related to your local environment, could you also help provide the information below?

1. May I know if the other users have the same problem? You can let your colleagues use the same steps to check if the same problem will occur.
2. At the same time, we’d suggest you go to SharePoint Online and open the PDF file to check if the same problem will occur, does it open in the browser or download to the local?

Your understanding and patience will be highly appreciated. 

Best Regards,

Sukie