Many users wish to convert Excel files to PDF ("Portable Document Format"). PDF files present your spreadsheet to others in a way that preserves the document's formatting and prevents the files from being easily altered.

In Excel 2010 or 2013

In Excel 2010 or Excel 2013, you can save your Excel spreadsheet to a PDF file using the 'Save As' menu:

• From the 'File' menu, select Save As option
• From the Save as type drop-down menu, select the option PDF (*.pdf)
• Type a filename into the File name area and click Save

In Excel 2007

If you have Excel 2007 and you want to save your Excel to a PDF file, you may need to download an add-in (a program that interacts with Excel) to do this. Microsoft provide a free add-in for this purpose, which can be downloaded from the download manager.

Once the add-in is installed, this runs whenever you start up Excel. You can then save an Excel file as a PDF document as follows:

• From the main Excel menu, click on the right arrow next to the Save As option
• Select the option PDF or XPS (see the image on the right)
• In the box that pops up, type the PDF filename, choose the file type "PDF", and click on the Publish button

You should be aware that to reverse this process (ie. convert PDF to Excel) is much more difficult. I am not aware of any free software that will do this, although there are commercial products available.