CrazySmartPDF vs OfficeToPDF (the open-source CLI)

Short answer: OfficeToPDF is a free, open-source command-line tool that converts Office documents by calling Office’s own built-in PDF export. That makes it dependable and scriptable, and it also means the PDF it produces is exactly the PDF that File → Save as PDF would have produced — split rows and clipped columns included. CrazySmartPDF also drives your installed Excel, but adds the step OfficeToPDF has no reason to have: it re-computes the page layout before rendering, and then checks the result. If your batch works and you just want it automated, OfficeToPDF is a fine free answer. If the batch keeps coming out broken, automation will not fix it.

What OfficeToPDF actually is

It is a wrapper, and it says so plainly: it converts documents using Office’s in-built PDF export features. That design has real consequences, all of them honest.

It needs Microsoft Office installed, exactly like CrazySmartPDF’s native apps do.
It handles Word and PowerPoint as well as Excel, which a spreadsheet-only tool does not.
It is free and open source, with no licence to buy and nothing to unlock.
And its output is Office’s output. There is no layout logic of its own, because that was never the point.

What that means on the page

Excel’s exporter prints your page setup. It fills each page top to bottom and cuts at the margin, so a tall row that straddles the line gets sliced. It prints at the width your sheet is set to, so columns past the right margin go onto their own strip of pages further back. Wrapping that exporter in a command line automates the result; it does not change it.

Page 1 of Excel's built-in PDF export: a portrait page whose table stops after the Region column, six of the sheet's twenty-three columns, with one row rendered as a tall empty band. — **Left is what OfficeToPDF hands back.** Because it calls Office's own exporter, its output for this workbook is the left-hand page: portrait, the table stopping after the sixth of twenty-three columns, no money column anywhere on page 1, and the totals not appearing until page 19. The right-hand page is the same file after the layout pass — landscape, all twenty-three columns, rows whole, ten pages instead of twenty-four. The tall empty band on the left is not a glitch: that row's height comes from a description column Excel put seventeen columns away.Sample workbook: 23 columns × 210 rows, synthetic — every company, person, invoice number and figure was invented for the capture. Every count in this caption was read back out of the two real PDFs. Tap either page to open it full size.

Page 1 of the layout-pass output from the same workbook: landscape, all twenty-three columns from Invoice No through Status, every row complete. — **Left is what OfficeToPDF hands back.** Because it calls Office's own exporter, its output for this workbook is the left-hand page: portrait, the table stopping after the sixth of twenty-three columns, no money column anywhere on page 1, and the totals not appearing until page 19. The right-hand page is the same file after the layout pass — landscape, all twenty-three columns, rows whole, ten pages instead of twenty-four. The tall empty band on the left is not a glitch: that row's height comes from a description column Excel put seventeen columns away.Sample workbook: 23 columns × 210 rows, synthetic — every company, person, invoice number and figure was invented for the capture. Every count in this caption was read back out of the two real PDFs. Tap either page to open it full size.

Where OfficeToPDF is the better call

You need Word and PowerPoint too. It converts the whole Office family; a spreadsheet tool does not.
You want free and scriptable, and the layout is already fine. Fitted one-page sheets, narrow reports, anything that already prints cleanly — automating Office’s exporter is the right amount of tool.
You want to read the source. It is open source; you can see exactly what it calls.

Where CrazySmartPDF is built to be different

It re-lays-out before rendering. Rows stay whole across page breaks, and a table too wide for the paper is resized to a readable floor or sliced across pages with the label column repeated, rather than cut off.
It renders the sheet’s full data range. A narrow or stale print area does not decide what survives into the PDF, and the desktop and web pre-send review tells you when data from beyond a set print area was included. In batch mode there is no per-file notice yet.
It reviews its own output. Each rendered file is scanned for blank and clipped pages and the suspects are flagged for you to look at. It flags them; it does not rewrite your file.
It is a desktop app, not a command line. A folder goes in, PDFs and a run log come out, free for runs of up to five files.

Side by side

	OfficeToPDF	CrazySmartPDF
Needs Office installed	Yes	Yes: Windows + Excel 2016+
Interface	Command line	Desktop app + Excel add-in
Layout	Office’s own export, unchanged	Re-computed: rows whole, wide tables kept readable
Word and PowerPoint	Yes	No — Excel only
Output check	None	Flags blank and clipped pages for review
Cost	Free, open source	Free on your files; one-time $39 beyond 5 files per run

Which should you use?

Use OfficeToPDF if you want a free, scriptable way to run the export you already get, across the whole Office suite.
Use CrazySmartPDF if the export itself is the problem — the split rows, the columns that land twelve pages away, the sheet nobody can read.

They are not really rivals. One automates Excel’s exporter; the other replaces the part of it that decides how the sheet sits on the page. CrazySmartPDF is free to run on your own files — see how it works.

FAQ

Does OfficeToPDF change how Excel paginates a sheet? No. It calls Office’s in-built PDF export, so the pagination, the page breaks and the clipping are Excel’s. That is by design: it is a conversion wrapper, not a layout engine.

Can I script CrazySmartPDF the way I script OfficeToPDF? The shipped route is the desktop app’s folder batch with a run log, not a public command line. If a scheduled command line is a hard requirement, OfficeToPDF or a CLI converter is the better fit today.

Do both need Microsoft Office? Yes. OfficeToPDF needs it because it calls Office’s exporter; CrazySmartPDF’s native apps need Windows with Excel 2016+ because they export styled cover and pivot pages through Excel. Without Excel, CrazySmartPDF’s free web tool converts one file at a time in a browser.