How to avoid adding white space after content when exporting Excel sheets to PDF?

Question

Hi,

English
I am making rich-formatted PDF documents with Excel and I love the customizability, but whenever I export a sheet as PDF, it takes the whole sheet content + white space after it goes on to the next sheet, instead of making one smooth PDF it's asif Excel just takes a whole sheet and is too lazy to format it nicely or do any afterwork.
And Micrsosoft doesn't have its own PDF editor so merge Excel sheets with Office Word-type documents in between, or even merge Excel with Powerpoint graphics.
I don't want to use Adobe PDF Editor as a workaround, so can you please help me, make professional looking magazines with Excel-formatted data tables and graphs inside them?

Some workplaces also insist on using Excel for any graphics tasks and even use it for databases and e-commerce purposes, as it's usually the only program they know how to work with and they cannot figure out Adobe as fast. So it's not really weird to think about.

I can help giving insights to Office products as an IT programmer, I can test out less common use cases like this one to help make the product nicer.

Nederlands
Ik ben rijk opgemaakte PDF documenten met Excel aan het maken en hoewel ik de customiseerbaarheid waardeer, vind ik het lastig dat wanneer ik het als PDF uitvoer, hij extra witte inhoud toevoegt in plaats van een soepel scrolbaar document maakt zoals in Word, alsof hij per blad rekent in plaats van het netjes te formatteren. Nu wordt het uitgevoerde PDF bestand wel heel lang omdat al die witte ruimte tussen de inhoud voor extra opvulling zorgt. En je kunt niet achteraf die witte ruimte makkelijk bewerken, zonder misschien derde partij middelen te gebruiken.
Sinds Microsoft geen eigen PDF bewerker heeft vraag ik me af hoe ik Excel kan samenvoegen met Word achtige documenten of zelfs Powerpoint.
Sommige werkplekken staan er op dat ze Excel gebruiken voor afbeelding en grafisch gerelateerde taken en zelfs databases en e-commerce, sinds het het enige programma is waar ze mee kunnen werken.

Ik kan helpen met inzichten te geven over Office producten als een IT programmeur ik kan bepaalde minder voorkomende gevallen zoals deze testen om te helpen meer uit het pakket te halen en beter te concurreren met Adobe, die heel sterk is met PDF's. Dit wordt veel vaker gevraagd in bedrijven, soms krijg je alleen een PDF en moet je het achteraf bewerken bijvoorbeeld.

I am bilingual, you can answer in both languages.

Ik ben tweetalig, je mag antwoorden in één der twee talen, Engels of Nederlands.

Answer 1

I've written a script myself to merge PDF's. Probably they just change the document header with PostScript.
I've found only one program, able to do this task, and it takes 9 lines of code.

It's crazy that even today, you still have to write lines of code for such a simple task. But I hope it has been useful.
You will have to use Windows Powershell.
My suggestion: Add Producer Mixed at the header of the PDF in the source code.
I wonder what we could accomplish if third-party apps would be able to work together, I bet this is the only reason why IT is stagnating nowadays, and it's not your fault perse but a problem within the culture of the IT industry.
You can set the problem as partly solved.

Answer 2

You've put a lot of thought into making documents look professional! Clear and well-designed visuals can really help communicate an idea, business plan, or project better.

Your way of organizing PDFs, whether smooth and flowing or in separate A4 sheets is smart. The Mixed Format idea, combining Word and Excel, is also great since PDFs don't show where the content came from. This makes it easy to blend different formats into one neat document.

Coming to alternate options, sorry I will not be able to suggest you any apps for the organizing PDF's since I am not authorized to give suggestions on any third-party apps.

Answer 3

What I meant was a streamlined exported PDF. Such as, if the content of one sheet is smaller than the Letter-format, the content of the next sheet is shifted forwards toward the former sheet.
The user would choose between a "smooth output" or a "each sheet as A4 letter" output with white space, as per their liking.
And I suggest a Mixed Format if you want a Word-style document squished in between Excel sheets or add your business logo afterwards, Magazine style.
Excel and Word are basically formatted with their own coding style, so mixing them isn't really a weird idea at all. Since in a PDF, readers don't see if the document was Excel or Word-generated.
I am searching for decent PDF editors, but there really are not many, maybe five.
I genuinely believe in the idea that if you professionally design a document, you can sell your idea or business plan or whatever thing better, visuals matter. Especially custom visuals are very much liked here. I'm already trying my best with Scale to Fit and settings.
Opening a PDF document that is created by Excel in Publisher doesn't seem to be possible, either, I have the full Office package by the way.
I like playing with software, I am even designing graphics and banners in Powerpoint nowadays, it lacks 3D design but it's getting there.

Answer 4

Hello Ronan,

Thank you for interacting with us by posting your issue on this forum.

To fix this issue we can try these troubleshooting:

Optimizing Excel for PDFs

• Adjust Page Layout: Use Page Break Preview to remove extra white space, set Scale to Fit, and customize margins.
• Enhance Visuals: Add background images and ensure tables/graphs are properly aligned.

Combining Excel with PowerPoint & Word

• PowerPoint for Design: Export Excel elements as images, then overlay graphics and text for a polished magazine look.
• Word for Text Integration: Paste tables as Linked Objects so updates sync, then use column formatting for a magazine-style layout.

Merging Without Adobe

Export separate PDFs from Excel, Word, and PowerPoint, then use Microsoft Edge’s built-in PDF editor to merge them.

Hope this helps! Have a nice day!

Regards,

Zenitsu | Microsoft Community Moderator