How to Export Tableau Worksheet to PDF

Creating a perfect visualization in Tableau is one thing, but getting it into a clean, shareable PDF file is a completely different challenge. Whether you need to send a static report to a stakeholder, archive monthly results, or include a worksheet in a presentation, exporting to PDF is a fundamental skill. This guide will walk you through the entire process, from a simple one-click export to fine-tuning the layout for a professional-grade document.

Why Export to PDF in the First Place?

While Tableau's power lies in its interactivity, sometimes you need a static snapshot of your data. Exporting to PDF is the best way to do this for a few key reasons:

• Universal Accessibility: Anyone can open a PDF on any device, whether or not they have Tableau Desktop or a server license. It’s a truly universal format for sharing insights.
• Static Archiving: PDFs are perfect for creating a frozen-in-time record of your data. You can save monthly or quarterly reports without worrying about the underlying data changing later on.
• Print-Ready Documents: It ensures that what you see on the screen is exactly what you’ll get when you print, preserving formatting, layouts, and annotations.
• Easy Integration: You can easily embed a PDF of your Tableau worksheet into PowerPoint presentations, Word documents, or email attachments.

The Quickest Method: Exporting a Single Active Worksheet

Let's start with the most common scenario: you have a single chart, graph, or crosstab open and want to quickly turn it into a PDF.

Step-by-step guide:

1. Navigate to the worksheet or dashboard you want to export. This will be your active sheet.
2. In the top menu, go to File > Print to PDF...
3. This opens the "Print to PDF" dialog box, which gives you several important options.

Let's break down the dialog box:

Print Range

For this single-sheet export, you’ll focus on the second option:

• Entire Workbook: Exports every visible worksheet and dashboard in your .twb file.
• Active Sheet: [Choose this one] Only exports the single worksheet or dashboard you are currently viewing.
• Selected Sheets: Allows you to pick and choose multiple specific sheets to include.

Content and View Options

In most cases for a single worksheet, you'll leave the selection as "This Worksheet". If you're exporting a dashboard with multiple sheets, you might see options to include or exclude specific views within that dashboard.

Paper Size and Orientation

• Paper Size: Options range from standard Letter and A4 to Legal and Tabloid. Choose the size that best matches your intended use. "Unspecified" lets Tableau determine the size based on the layout, which is useful for non-standard dashboards.
• Orientation: Choose Portrait for tall visuals (like a bar chart with many categories) or Landscape for wide visuals (like line charts showing a long time series or wide crosstabs). Landscape is often a better choice for dashboards.

Click "OK," choose where to save your file, and you're done! You've successfully created your first PDF from Tableau.

Exporting Multiple Sheets or an Entire Workbook

Often, you'll need to create a "report pack" that combines several charts and tables into a single, multipage PDF document. Tableau makes this just as easy.

1. Go to File > Print to PDF... like before.
2. In the "Print to PDF" dialog box, change the Print Range.

Choosing Your Print Range

• Entire Workbook: This is a one-click way to grab every visible sheet in your workbook. Be careful with this option if you have dozens of "work-in-progress" sheets - they’ll all be included unless you hide them first. To hide a sheet, simply right-click its tab at the bottom and select "Hide Sheet."
• Selected Sheets: This is often the more practical choice. When you select this option, the list of all your dashboards and worksheets becomes active. You can now hold Ctrl (or Cmd on a Mac) and click to select the specific sheets you want to include in your PDF report pack. The order in which they appear in the final PDF will match the order they are in within your workbook.

Once you've made your selection, choose your Paper Size and Orientation, click "OK," and Tableau will generate a single PDF containing all your selected visuals, with each sheet on a new page.

How to Create Professional-Looking PDFs: Fine-Tuning Your Output

A default export is fast, but it might not be perfect. The text might be too small, a chart might be cut off, or the margins might look odd. This is where the Page Setup options become your best friend.

Before exporting, go to File > Page Setup.... This dialog lets you control the presentation of your PDF in great detail.

The General Tab: Controlling What's Included and How it Fits

The "General" tab gives you control over titles, captions, and scaling.

Show Sections:

Here you can toggle various components of your worksheet on or off:

• Show Title: Includes the worksheet title at the top.
• Show View: This is the main visualization itself - you almost always want this checked.
• Show Caption: If you've written a caption for your worksheet, you can include it at the bottom. This is great for adding explanatory text.
• Show... Legend: Toggles any color, shape, or size legends associated with your viz. Without these, your chart may be unreadable, so it’s usually best to keep them on.

Print Scaling:

This is arguably the most important setting for fixing PDF layout problems.

• Automatic (Default): Tableau tries to guess the best fit. This often results in visuals that are either too small or spill onto multiple pages.
• Fit to: This is your 'magic wand' for sizing. You can force the visual to fit within a specific number of pages, like "1 page wide by 1 page tall." This guarantees your entire dashboard or multi-page table will fit neatly on a single page, though it might shrink the content to do so.
• Scale to: If "Fit to" makes your content too tiny, use "Scale to" instead. You can specify a percentage of its normal size (e.g., 80% or 120%) for more granular control.

The Layout Tab: Margins and Centering

The "Layout" tab is simple but effective for giving your document a polished, professional look. You can adjust the top, bottom, left, and right margins to add more white space. You can also center your view either horizontally or vertically on the page.

A Special Case: Multi-Page Tables (Crosstabs)

What if you have a massive table that intentionally needs to span several pages? A default export can be confusing, as the header row only appears on the first page. The "Page Setup" dialog has a solution.

In File > Page Setup, under the Print Scaling section, you'll see a radio button for "Repeat headers and legends on each page". Selecting this ensures that for long crosstabs that flow onto multiple pages, the column headers will be reprinted at the top of each new page, keeping your table readable from start to finish.

Advanced Tip: Automating PDF Exports with tabcmd

If you need to generate the same report every single day or week, manually exporting becomes tedious. For users of Tableau Server or Tableau Cloud, you can automate this entire process using tabcmd, Tableau's command-line utility.

After installing tabcmd and a bit of setup, you can run a simple script to log in, export a specific view to PDF, and save it to a folder. This is perfect for scheduling reports.

Here is an example of what a command looks like:

tabcmd export "Sales/RegionalPerformance" --pdf -f "Q3_Sales_Report.pdf" --pagelayout landscape

Let's break that down:

• export "Sales/RegionalPerformance": Tells tabcmd to find the "RegionalPerformance" view within the "Sales" workbook.
• --pdf: Specifies that the output format should be a PDF.
• -f "Q3_Sales_Report.pdf": Sets the filename for the output file.
• --pagelayout landscape: Sets the page orientation.

You can save this command in a batch file and use your operating system's scheduler (like Windows Task Scheduler or a cron job on Mac/Linux) to run it automatically at set intervals. This lets you "set it and forget it," delivering fresh reports to a shared folder right on schedule.

Common Problems and How to Fix Them Quickly

• Problem: "My dashboard is cut off or spills onto two pages." Fix: Before exporting, set your dashboard's size to a fixed layout (like "Letter Landscape") instead of "Automatic." Then, in the Print to PDF options, use "Fit to 1 page wide by 1 page tall" to force everything onto a single page.
• Problem: "Everything is too small to read in the exported PDF." Fix: This usually happens when "Fit to Page" has to shrink a large, complex view. Try simplifying your visualization by removing unnecessary elements or splitting it into multiple worksheets. Alternatively, use the Page Setup > Scale to option and find a percentage (e.g., 90%) that fits better without being too small.
• Problem: "My interactive elements like filters and tooltips are missing." Fix: This isn't a problem, but a feature! Remember, a PDF is always a static, flat image of your view at a specific moment in time. You can't interact with it. Before exporting, make sure you've selected the filter settings you want to be displayed in the final document.

Final Thoughts

Exporting a Tableau worksheet to a PDF is a straightforward process, but mastering the "Page Setup" and scaling options is what truly separates a quick screenshot from a polished, professional report. By understanding how to control size, orientation, and layout, you can ensure your data visualizations look just as good on paper as they do on your screen.

This process of manually creating and distributing reports is effective but can create a time lag between insight and action. At Graphed, we aim to eliminate the friction that comes with passing around static reports. Instead of building a viz, exporting a PDF, and waiting for feedback, we help you create real-time, shareable dashboards using simple, natural language. Anyone on your team can get the insights they need, ask follow-up questions, and explore live data without waiting for an updated PDF to land in their inbox.