Google Docs Tabs to PDF

[chrishw]

How is it possible to convert all the Tabs of a Google Doc into a PDF? When I select "Download as PDF" it only converts the first tab, and there is no way to select the other tabs to be included. 

[chrishw]

It's a feature in alpha/developer preview right now, which is probably why the features are limited.  You can find info on the API here.

[Herchi]

I have same problem ☹️

[EmDeeEm]

When using the new tabs feature, to download the entire document you have to do it from Google Drive and not from the open document.

The problem I'm having is that it downloads as a doxc. There is no option to select the format and what I want is for it to be a pdf. I know I can just convert the file so that's a workaround. It would just be nice if this wasn't a multi-step process. Hopefully, this is because it's new and all the features haven't rolled out yet.

[ninak]

I have the same issue. I really enjoyed working with the tabs, but I can't download them as a single PDF document, and when I download the DOCX file, it creates some pages with the tab titles blank, which doesn't interest me either. I hope these issues are addressed soon. 

[celinegrace]

I found a workaround. In Google Drive, navigate to your document and select Open With — Preview. Then select Print [this will open the document in a new tab. From here, you can select Download and it will download your document in PDF. Alternatively, you can select Print and it will open the Print Dialogue. You will then be able to select the destination to Save to PDF.

Note: When downloading the document as is, it will save a title page for each tab you have in the document. If you don't want this, I suggest you use the Print option and custom select the pages you want to save.

[Jennysfen]

This works, but the formatting has all changed. I want to keep the fonts, background colours (watermarks), tables, and images as they are.

[vikramaruchamy]

You can use the add-on Docs to PDF Pro. It supports exporting Google Docs with multiple tabs as a single PDF file. It has an option to remove the tab name pages. It also supports the bulk conversion of Google Docs into PDF format. 

P.S. I'm the developer of this add-on.  

[Pavlosaa]

Sort of OKish, unfortunately no support for hyperlinks in the exports whatsoever 😐

[GerhardZelenka]

Hi chrishw

Once you've shared your file with your audience, you can create PDF files (including TAB content) by changing the last part of URL. If you need to update your document, you can make changes to the original Google Doc file, as people always get the current document converted to PDF.

Remove everything after the last "/" (I've truncated the Google Doc URL for simplicity):

From:  ...E3IVs/edit#heading=h.8ub2sdw1
To:       ...E3IVs/

and then adding a new end component:

• export?format=pdf
  ...E3IVs/export?format=pdf
  Formats available include:
  • pdf
  • doc
  • docx
  • epub
  • txt
  • html
  • zip
  • odt
  • rtf

There are a number of other tags you can add for different distribution methods:

• Create a unique copy of the document for each person in their own Google Drive: copy
  ...E3IVs/copy
• Place the document into Preview (view only) mode: preview
  ...E3IVs/preview
• Place the document into Preview mode with the option of creating a copy: template/preview
  ...E3IVs/template/preview

I hope this helps.

[Mahāvastra]

@GerhardZelenka thanks for sharing this approach. It is very useful! You also can add "tab" param and get pdf for your needed tab.

For example 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/YOUR_DOC_ID/export?format=pdf&tab=YOUR_TAB_ID

I don't know how notifications work here so tag all who asked about this problem

@chrishw @ninak @Herchi @Jennysfen @Pavlosaa 

[GerhardZelenka]

Hi @Mahāvastra,  we don't know how big the puzzle is, or what it will look like when we have all of the pieces (or if we already have all of the pieces) but every piece we find adds to the picture and makes it clearer - thank you!

[spinningrachel]

Go to your drive and from there, download the file. It downloads as Word. No matter what computer you have, there'll be a native program that can read it and convert it to PDF. No add-ons. No scripts. No messy formatting.

[KAM]

@spinningrachel see the note above like export?format=pdf and that should give you all the tabs too. You can replace PDF with other formats. -KAM