Spreadsheets
Excel, Sheets and Numbers cannot be uploaded. Export a snapshot, or publish a live link when the numbers change through the day.
Spreadsheets hold much of what operations teams need on a wall: production counts, shift figures, KPIs, inventory. Like other office formats they cannot be uploaded, so the question is how the data behaves rather than which file to send.
Data that changes weekly is fine as an exported image or PDF. Data that changes through the day wants a live link, or it will be wrong more often than it is right.
As an image
A clean, controlled snapshot of exactly the view you want. Re-export when the data changes.
- Google Sheets: File, Download, PNG downloads the current view. A cropped screenshot also works.
- Excel: select the cells, then Home, Copy, Copy as Picture, and paste into an image editor.
- Numbers: File, Export To, Images where available, otherwise a cropped screenshot.
Good for summary tables where the layout matters as much as the numbers.
As a PDF
Preserves column widths, fonts, and print layout, and lets you show several pages from one file.
- Google Sheets: File, Download, PDF Document, configuring layout, scale, and which sheets to include.
- Excel: File, Export, Export to PDF/XPS. Set the print area first, or the output will not match what you expect.
- Numbers: File, Export To, PDF.
See PDFs.
As a live link
Publish the sheet to the web and add the published URL as content. The screen loads it fresh each time it plays, so changes appear without anyone touching Screenly.
- In Google Sheets, go to File, Share, Publish to web.
- Choose the sheet and the output format, then copy the URL.
- Add that URL as content.
This is the right answer for a live production count or a figure that moves during a shift.
Two things to be aware of. Only the published range appears, so publish deliberately rather than sharing a whole workbook. And it is a live page, so it needs the network at play time and will be skipped while the source is unreachable. See Web pages.
[!TIP] If the same data already exists in a tool with a proper dashboard, an app will usually look better on a wall than a spreadsheet. Screenly has ready-made apps for Salesforce, Power BI, Grafana and Airtable.