Converting XLSX files to PDF sounds simple, but it becomes challenging when your spreadsheet includes charts, shapes, images, formulas, or multilingual text. Many basic tools work more like an xlsx viewer, meaning they can display data but can’t fully reproduce Excel’s visual layout when exporting to PDF. This leads to missing charts, broken formatting, or incorrect characters in the final file.

For accurate, reliable conversion, you need a tool that supports full Excel rendering. The most dependable solutions are LibreOffice headless mode and Aspose.Cells, both of which preserve formatting, tables, charts, shapes, and non-Latin text exactly as in Excel. These tools process the spreadsheet visually—unlike an xlsx viewer—so the PDF output looks clean and professional.

If your workflow requires consistent formatting or you're handling complex reports, these methods ensure you get a pixel-perfect PDF every time. Let me know if you want setup steps or sample code for either option!