Saving several sheets in an excel workpaper to PDF

[edavies]

Hello,

I am trying to see if there is a way to easily print each sheet in my excel workpaper to PDF (would be helpful if I could select which sheets too).  To give more background, it's a workpaper that has several sheets for invoicing purposes, and I'd like to easily drop the file in and run a workflow that will print each invoice to PDF.  However, I'm not too advanced in the reporting tools.  Also, I'm not sure if it's possible to use one input tool for something like this, or if I would have to manually add in a input tool for each sheet/invoice.  It'd also be extremely helpful if I could also use some sort of dynamic naming for each output based on an invoice # listed in each sheet if possible.

Any help is much appreciated!

Thank you

[Qiu]

@edavies 
The source file is an Excel file?

We can of course bring all the data in dynamically, but just note that all the formatting in your original Excel will be lost.

If that is ok with you, after bringing all the data in, we can use something as the replies below with rendering the data to one PDF.

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Desktop-Discussions/Compare-between-2-files-and-cr...

[edavies]

@Qiu The source file is an excel file.  Now that I think about it, I can create these PDFs while pulling in columns/rows from a source file.  I'm stuck at replicating the above formatting using the reporting tools though.  Would you know if something like this would be possible?  The black boxes should have text inside.

[Qiu]

@edavies 
I think what you are tring to do here is not the Alteryx does best, which is data processing, rather than the data formatting here.
Maybe you can explore the tool "Report Text" but it would not be so dynamic anyway.

Why dont your just convert Excel to PDF directly?

[caltang]

Please provide relevant data to this use case, and kindly provide your criteria in as much detail as possible. If you have a workflow built halfway, kindly export that over as well.

To export a workflow go to: Options > Export Workflow. Kindly do NOT send a "Save As" copy.

Then we will be able to show you a full example.

[edavies]

@Qiu I currently export each sheet manually to PDF from Excel.  However, doing this for 50+ invoices isn't ideal due to the amount of time it takes up, especially after having to rename to match the invoice number / vendor.  I'm trying to come up with a more efficient/automated way to save each sheet separately using Alteryx, but I'm not sure if this is possible if I want to keep the same template format in my excel file.  I have been using Report Text to come up with the invoice template, however as you said, it doesn't seem like Alteryx would be able to keep that formatting I have listed above.  This is unfortunate, because I feel like I'm so close to doing what I was looking for, as Alteryx can print a PDF for each invoice I'd like and name each invoice uniquely.  It's just missing the same formatting as the excel template I use.

[edavies]

@caltang Appreciate your help!  Due to sensitivity of data, I have altered the data, however that should still give a good sense of what I'm looking for.  Please see the attached workflow I am currently using.  It's creating singular invoices off of the data inputted and naming the PDF files based off of the data.  This is very helpful, as my team has to manually rename each invoice which can be tedious when you're doing 50+ invoices every month or so.  This will also reduce any room for error. 

I think my main issue now is that I don't know how to set up the invoice template in the reporting tools to match the invoice template we have in our excel spreadsheet.  I have also attached this template.  Of course, the spacing will be trial and error (haven't spent time adjusting the spacing), however my main concern are those borders/boxes in the screenshot. 

Originally, I was hoping that Alteryx would allow me to input an excel workpaper with all the invoice tabs and print each tab to pdf, but that doesn't seem possible from what I've researched.

Let me know if you have any questions.  I hope this is clear!

[caltang]

Hmm, I would suggest to use the Table tool itself rather than the Report text since it can be quite clunky sometimes. 

Another method would be to have an excel template ready, and Alteryx can write to that template in .xlsx, but you'll need a batch macro to write one by one, then you'll need to chain that app to render it to PDF like above.

Hope this gives some ideas.

[edavies]

@caltang thank you.  I tried downloading your zipped file, however it says that nothing exists when I drag it onto my canvas.  Do you know what is causing this?

[caltang]

A YXZP needs to be double clicked to download the assets into Alteryx for use. I've not dragged it to a Canvas before haha!

You should see this^