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I want to save (or 'Publish') an Excel 2010/2013 chart to a PDF file whose dimensions will be exactly those of the chart - not a full white page with the chart on it.

Can this be done somehow?

(Here's a tutorial on how to export a PDF from a chart - which suggests you use Adobe Acrobat to crop the white surroundings. But can't Excel to just not output them?)

A solution requiring a VBA macro (for printing a selected chart while setting the page size to the chart size) would be acceptable, if not what I'm hoping for...

einpoklum
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  • What have you tried? I think you will get misunderstandings, maybe describe your requirement again in different words. I could imagine (but currently not try) three approaches, setting the margins to zero in the print dialogue, selecting the diagram and printing the selection only and some kind of screenshot based approached involving VBA. No idea if any of this works, but maybe it gives you an idea to try. Good luck! ;-) – TheUser1024 Jun 27 '14 at 14:06
  • @TheUser1024: Setting the margins to 0 won't help - you're printing a full page of some fixed size; selecting and printing - same thing, it uses a fixed page size; involving VBA - well, I suppose, if you could set the page size based on the chart dimensions. Updated accordingly. – einpoklum Jun 27 '14 at 15:17
  • The community bot popped up this question again, and it looks like you never got an acceptable answer. Don't know if this has been overtaken by events, but it isn't clear what you mean by "exact dimensions". What you see on the screen is probably about 96 ppi, sized to fit the available screen space, and it's affected by various view settings. When you print or save it, the chart is re-generated based on various settings related to the output. Can you clarify your objective? (same pixel size? same inch or cm size? full page on output? same percentage of page based on on-screen view?) – fixer1234 Dec 07 '15 at 16:09
  • When I was exporting to a PDF, I was getting an A4 page with the chart somewhere on it. The link demonstrates that. I was asking how I could avoid the white area. The question was orthogonal to the issue of resolution (plus, I would hope the chart would be vectorized anyway, so the resolution should be infinite basically). – einpoklum Dec 07 '15 at 16:21
  • Even if the question has been overtaken by events for you, it is a useful one to get an answer to (I upvoted it originally). However, the wording in both the question and your comment on the answer are very confusing because "dimension" refers to some form of measurement, which is not your intended meaning. Either meaning would make a good question, but the current wording will make it difficult to get an answer. Would you mind if I try tweaking the wording (you can always roll it back)? – fixer1234 Dec 08 '15 at 17:24

3 Answers3

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I think I figured it out. In Excel, highlight the portion, chart or table you wish to publish to PDF. Then File=> Save As...In the "Save As" dialog Box, rename the document in "Filename" and then in the "Save As Type" window, grab the pull-down menu and click the "PDF" line. AT this point, a PDF dialog Box appears. Click "Options" and then click "Selection" then "OK" then "Save" And voila! You can also modify "Orientation" after you've highlighted the subject area to better suit the final output.

Jim Beyer
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    Does this work? I'm still getting the chart only on a full white page PDF. (Like you mentioned in your Q, I want only the chart at its exact dimensions.) –  Sep 26 '17 at 02:54
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It was troubling me for a long time. I found a way to do this.

  • Select the chart.
  • From the menu choose page_layout => margin. Then page setup window will appear. From there you can choose left, right, up, down margin to 0 or other values.
  • You can also change page orientation to landscape.
  • I hope this will help you to export the chart dimension area to pdf. If there is a border in the exported pdf then from the chart outliner choose "No outline"

enter image description here

Al-Alamin
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On Excel 2010 you can just select the chart you want to print and go to File > Print. This will automatically select the option to "Print the selected chart" (I'm used to a Spanish version of Excel so I don't know the actual value in English) and fit it to the page.

Excel 2010 also has built-in "Save as PDF" support, just select the PDF Printer from the Printers drop-down list.

kenkh
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