# Export and share a report

Getting a report out of Repairs and in front of somebody who does not use it.

A report is more useful once it has left the screen. Four formats are offered, and which one is right depends entirely on what the person receiving it is going to do with it.

## Highlights

- **Four options**: Excel, PDF, CSV and print.
- **The export takes what is on screen**, filters, columns and period included.
- **Set the report up first**, then export. Not the other way round.
- **PDF is for reading**; **Excel and CSV are for working on.**
- **Nothing here schedules or emails a report.**

## Export it

![The Repair Summary report with the export menu open from the three-dot control beside Run Report. The menu lists Excel (.xlsx) with a green spreadsheet icon, PDF with a red document icon, and CSV with a blue icon, then a separated Print entry with a printer icon. Behind it the report table shows monthly rows from May to September 2026 and a Total row of 64 tickets and 225,780 pounds.](https://www.sorviai.com/help/repairs/reports/export-menu.png)

*Four ways out. Print is separated from the three file formats because it produces no file.*

- **Set the report up the way you want it read**

  The period, the columns and any grouping. The export copies what is on screen, so anything you have not set now will be wrong in the file.
- **Select Run Report**

  Export what you can see, not what you have asked for and not yet run.
- **Select the three-dot control beside Run Report**

  The menu offers the three file formats and print.
- **Choose a format**

  The file downloads through your browser.

## Choosing a format

*Which format for which reader*

| Format | Best for | Why |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Excel (.xlsx) | An accountant or anyone who will sort and total it | Keeps the columns as columns and the numbers as numbers |
| PDF | A customer, a manager, or anything attached to an email | Looks like the report and cannot be edited by accident |
| CSV | Another system, or a spreadsheet you already have | The plainest possible format, with no styling to get in the way |
| Print | A wall, a clipboard, or a morning meeting | Produces no file at all |

> **Warning:**
>
> **Say which period the file covers**
>
> A report exported to a file loses the toolbar that said which dates it covered. An unlabelled spreadsheet of unbilled work is indistinguishable a month later from a current one, so put the period in the filename or in the email that carries it.

> **Tip:**
>
> **Trim the columns before exporting, not after**
>
> It is far quicker to turn three columns off with **Columns** than to delete them in a spreadsheet, and it means everybody who receives the file is reading the same thing rather than their own edit of it.