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

Hello.

Yes, all other users that try this have experienced the issue. They are the ones that brought it to my attention. 

When I just open the PDF from the SP library in the browser, it opens as a PDF normally would when you open it from SP. That looks normal. It looks like I'm unable to generate the new PDF from the Excel file in Office online because I don't have that option when I try to save a copy. 

I re-read your previous response and think that I may have misunderstood your suggestion. When I am working in the .xlsx file from the Excel desktop app and hit Save As > PDF, normally I just save in the location that's already set, which is directly in the SP library. I tried to instead hit Browse, manually browse to the sync'd document library in OneDrive and saved it there. Only one copy of the PDF file was saved and it was in the SP document library, not the personal downloads folder, which is what we want.

So when you manually save it that way, it appears to work. Unfortunately I feel that this is just a workaround and my users aren't going to understand why this is happening or accept that they have to save that way each time. Is this by design? Is there any way to get this to work correctly?

Thanks for your help.

Answer 2

Hi ChrisThomas4700,

I’m sorry for the late reply.

Based on your description, you can use the workaround we provided above successfully, at the same time, if you open the PDF in the browser and it works fine. And all users have the same problem.

If so, given this situation you encountered, we understand the inconvenience caused by it. On the one hand, since you can save PDF file to OneDrive sync client without any problem, we’d suggest you let users save PDF to OneDrive sync folder as a workaround.

On the other hand, for the situation your encountered, since we cannot reproduce the same situation as yours and all users have the same problem, this issue may be this issue may need to be checked from background, the best way to troubleshoot the issue is to report the issue to the related Team. I have sent you a Private Message, please click on the link for more information on this issue. We also want to report this issue directly to the related team. However, we don’t have specific escalate channel to report this issue. As the side of Office 365 admin have access to report this issue to the related team, this is why we’d suggest you open a ticket directly. This is the best way and fast way to solve this issue.

Your understanding and patience will be highly appreciated.

Best Regards,

Sukie