I’m having a weird problem with my Google Sheets when I try to create PDF files from them. Everything works perfectly except for one annoying issue with dates.
Whenever I pick a date in my spreadsheet like 29/12/2021, it shows up as 28/12/2021 in the PDF that gets generated. The date is always one day behind what I actually selected.
I already tried adjusting the locale settings and timezone configuration but nothing fixed it. Has anyone faced this before? Can someone explain why this happens?
Also wondering if there’s a way to fix this problem using Google Apps Script. Any help would be appreciated!
omg, i had this happen too! it’s def a timezone glitch. set your sheet’s timezone in file > settings to match your local timezone, then double check your browser settings. that shud help fix the date issue in pdfs!
Yeah, the timezone issue is real, but there’s a way cleaner solution than messing with manual formatting or browser settings.
I hit this same problem building automated reports. Google’s PDF export handles dates differently than what you see in the sheet - it’s annoying.
Skip Google’s built-in PDF export entirely. Set up a workflow that grabs your sheet data, fixes the date formatting, and spits out PDFs that actually look right.
Bonus: you can customize the PDF layout and add stuff like auto-email delivery or cloud storage. Way more reliable than fighting Google’s weird timezone quirks.
I use Latenode for this - it connects straight to Google Sheets and handles dates without the timezone headaches. You can even schedule it to run automatically.
Had the same issue with monthly reports. Google Sheets screws up dates during PDF conversion - it treats your date as midnight UTC instead of your local timezone. When it generates the PDF, everything shifts and you get dates that are a day behind. I fixed it by adding a buffer column with the TEXT function to convert dates to strings first. Use =TEXT(A1,“DD/MM/YYYY”) where A1 is your date cell. Then reference the text version in your final layout instead of the actual date cells. Google can’t mess with timezone processing when it’s just text. Not pretty, but it works perfectly.
This is a classic UTC conversion problem with PDF exports. Google Sheets stores dates as UTC timestamps, so when you export to PDF, your local timezone doesn’t match the export timezone. I encountered this issue last year with financial reports. One solution is to skip the built-in PDF export and instead use Google Apps Script. You should format your dates explicitly before converting using Utilities.formatDate() with your timezone parameter to maintain consistency. Alternatively, converting date cells to text strings prior to PDF generation can prevent any automatic timezone adjustment during export. While this requires more manual effort, it ensures accurate dates every time.
had a similar issue too! make sure your dates are not text; they might be messing things up. i used the DATE() function instead of direct entries. it solved my PDF export probs and kept my dates right.