Overview
The Microsoft Excel Online App puts a spreadsheet on your screens without rebuilding it as a slide. You pick an Excel file from your Microsoft account, Yodeck converts it into a PDF, and plays that PDF on your screens. When the file changes, the screen follows.
The conversion uses the print settings saved in the file. The ranges you mark as print areas, laid out the way you set them in Page Setup, are virtually what appears on screen. That makes a few minutes in Excel Online the most important step of the setup, so this article covers it first.
Available for Raspberry Pi 4 and Web players but only on the Premium & Enterprise plans!
This app is available on all player types but only on the "Premium/Enterprise" Plan. You might not see some menus below if you are not on the "Premium/Enterprise" Plan.
The Microsoft Excel Online App in the App Gallery
💡A note on wording: Microsoft now calls the browser version of Excel "Excel for the web". This article says Excel Online, to match the app name. Both mean the same editor.
Before you start
Make sure you have:
An active Yodeck account with access to Apps.
A Microsoft (365) online account, personal or work or school, that can open the Excel file in Excel Online.
Make sure that your Microsoft (365) online account has the relevant OneDrive license.
The Excel file saved in that account's OneDrive. The app reads files from OneDrive only, so a file that lives on a SharePoint site needs a copy in OneDrive first.
Edit access to the file, so you can set the print area and Page Setup.
⚠️Prepare the file before you pick it in Yodeck. The app converts whatever the file's print settings describe. Without a print area, Excel includes every cell you ever typed in, which usually means a tiny table on a huge page or a stack of near-empty pages.
ℹ️One Microsoft account, one Yodeck account. You can create as many Microsoft Excel Online Apps as you need inside your Yodeck account, and you decide which Microsoft account each one uses:
Same Microsoft account, several apps: one login can power every Excel app in your Yodeck account. Pick a different file for each app.
Different Microsoft accounts, same Yodeck account: each app can log in with its own Microsoft account, for example one per department, all inside the same Yodeck account.
❌Same Microsoft account, different Yodeck accounts: not possible. A Microsoft account connects to one Yodeck account only. If it is already linked to another Yodeck account, Login with Microsoft returns an error.
How the Microsoft Excel Online App works
You log in with Microsoft once, inside the app, and choose an Excel file from your account.
Yodeck opens the file, finds every print area you set and converts them into PDF pages using your Page Setup. One print area becomes one page, or several pages if it does not fit on one.
Your screens play the pages in order, each for the duration you set, then start again from the first page.
If anyone updates the respective file, Yodeck captures the changes within approximately 5 minutes (larger files may take a bit longer). Then it regenerates the PDF, so an edit in Excel appears on the screen without any other manual actions in Yodeck.
ℹ️Your screens receive the finished PDF only. They never open Excel and never log in to Microsoft.
Step 1: Prepare your Excel file in Excel Online
Do this in Excel Online, on the file you plan to display. Excel Online saves as you go, so every setting below lands in the file straight away. You never print anything.
Set the print area
Open the file in Excel Online and switch to the sheet you want on screen.
Select the cells you want to display. Drag from the first cell to the last and include the titles, legends and charts that belong on screen.
Click the Page Layout tab.
Click Print Area, then Set Print Area.
From now on, Excel treats only this range as printable, and the app displays only this range. Need a second range, on this sheet or another one? Select it and click Print Area, then Add to Print Area (or Set Print Area on the other sheet, or any other sheet you wish to display). Each print area becomes its own page on screen.
Setting the print area in Excel Online: Page Layout (1), Print Area (2), Set Print Area (3), then Page Setup (4)
💡Picked the wrong range? Click Print Area, then Clear Print Area, select again and set it once more. Rows and columns you hide in Excel stay hidden on screen, so hide helper columns instead of deleting them.
Fine-tune the page in Page Setup
On the Page Layout tab, click Page Setup. Excel opens a preview of the printed page with a Page setup pane on the right.
Adjust the settings in the pane until the preview matches how you want the screen to look. The preview updates as you change each setting.
Click Back to workbook. Excel keeps the settings in the file.
The Page Setup preview. What you see here is what your screens show
Here is what each setting in the pane does, and what to pick for a screen:
Setting | What it controls | For a screen |
What the preview shows: Active sheet, Entire workbook or Current selection. | Keep Active sheet while you work on one sheet. Pick Entire workbook to preview every print area in the file at once. The app converts every print area you set either way. | |
Ignore print area | Shows the whole sheet in the preview instead of your print area. | Leave it unticked, so the preview matches what the app converts. |
Paper size | The proportions of the page, for example Letter, A4 or Legal. ℹ️We recommend the Legal proportion for most screens. | Legal. Its shape comes closest to a widescreen display, so the content fills more of the screen than with Letter or A4. This is our recommendation for every landscape screen. |
Orientation | Portrait or Landscape. | Match your screen: Landscape for a standard TV, Portrait for a rotated screen. |
Page margins | Normal, Wide, Narrow or the last custom margins you used. | Narrow, to give the content more room. |
Scaling | No scaling, Fit sheet on one page, Fit all columns on one page or Fit all rows on one page. | Fit sheet on one page for a dashboard. Fit all columns on one page for a long list you want split across several pages at full width. |
Format options | Gridlines prints the cell grid. Row and column headings prints the A, B, C and 1, 2, 3 labels. Black and white drops the colors. | Leave all three off unless the grid is part of your design. |
Center on page | Places the content in the middle of the page, Horizontally, Vertically or both. | Tick both for a dashboard that fits on one page. Tick Horizontally only for a multi-page list, so every page starts at the top. |
Pages (Print total) | How many pages Excel produces with the current settings. | This is the number of pages the app plays. If it is higher than you expect, your print area is too large or your scaling needs a change. |
Pages | Which pages go to a printer: All or a range. | Leave it on All. To keep a page off the screen, skip it from the app instead (see Step 2). |
⚙️The short version for a single-screen dashboard: set the print area, then choose Legal, Landscape, Narrow margins, Fit sheet on one page and both Center on page boxes. Check that Print total reads 1 before you leave.
Step 2: Set up the app in the Yodeck Portal
Open the app
Log in to your Yodeck Portal.
Go to Apps, find the Microsoft Excel Online App in your app gallery, and click Use App. You can also find it under the Dashboards category.
The first time you open the app, a short guided tour points out the main controls. Click Next to follow it or Skip tour to go straight to the form.
The guided tour and the Prepare your Excel file banner
The Prepare your Excel file banner at the top of the form repeats the essentials of Step 1. Click View Guide any time you need a reminder, and Read Documentation inside the guide brings you back to this article.
The in-app guide behind View Guide
Log in with Microsoft and choose the file
Creating a Microsoft Excel Online App (new, before login)
Click Login with Microsoft. A Microsoft sign-in window opens.
Sign in with the account that contains the file, then accept the access Yodeck requests.
Back in the form, the Authentication field shows your account with a Sign Out link, and Choose Excel File becomes active.
Click Choose Excel File and select the file you prepared. The file name appears in the field, with a Last Updated time under it and a pencil icon you can use to switch to another file later.
💡Nothing happened when you clicked? Your browser probably blocked the popup. Look for a blocked-popup icon in the address bar, allow popups for Yodeck and click Login with Microsoft again.
Complete the app settings
Name: Give the app a name. If you plan to run several sheets, name it after the file or the sheet, for example, "Production schedule, Line 2".
Description: Add an optional description.
Default Duration for each Page: Set how many seconds each page stays on screen before the app moves to the next one, from 1 to 999. The default is 10 seconds. In a playlist, the app plays for the total of all its page durations, so a single page plays for exactly this long.
Set Duration for a specific Page: Click this to give one page its own duration. Enter the Page number and a Duration from 1 to 999 seconds, or enter 0 to skip that page entirely. Click Set Duration for another Page to add more, or the bin icon to remove one.
Tags: Add tags to organize the app or to use it in a Tag-Based Playlist. Click Manage Tags to edit your account's tags.
Availability: Turn this on to schedule when the app is active, then set a From and To date and time. Click Add Scheduled Availability for more periods or tick Non-expiring. See Media Availability for the details.
Click Preview to check the pages before they reach a screen, then click Save. The app appears in your My apps tab, ready to add to a playlist, a layout or a screen.
⚙️Saving the app is not the last step. Push your changes so your screens pick up the new content.
Check the App Details panel
Once you choose a file, the App Details panel on the left shows a thumbnail of the first page, the page count, the app ID, the upload date and the time Yodeck last updated the file. Click See where this app is being used to list the playlists, layouts, and screens that include it.
ℹ️The page count is your quick check. It should match Print total in Excel, with Print set to Entire workbook if you set print areas on several sheets. A higher number means a print area or the scaling needs another look.
How the file refreshes
Yodeck checks the file about every 5 minutes and regenerates the PDF when it has changed. A large workbook takes longer to convert, so allow a little extra time.
The Last Updated time under the file name in the app shows when Yodeck last picked up the file.
Print area and Page Setup changes refresh the same way as data changes, because they live in the file.
You can rename the file or move it to another folder in OneDrive. Yodeck keeps following it.
Between refreshes and while a screen is offline, the screen keeps playing the last PDF it received.
Microsoft Excel Online App Final Result
The examples below showcase how Yodeck displays the selected part(s) of the Microsoft Excel Online in its preview and screens.
Preview Example of an Excel file spreadsheet with selected margins
Security and privacy
You sign in on Microsoft's own page. Yodeck never sees or stores your Microsoft password.
Yodeck uses the connection to open the file you choose and convert it. The file keeps its sharing settings in OneDrive. You do not need to share it with anyone.
Your players receive only the converted PDF. No Microsoft credentials ever reach a screen.
You stay in control. Click Sign Out in the Authentication field to disconnect the account at any time.
⚠️A sheet on a wall is visible to everyone who walks past. Check what sits inside the print area before you point a reception screen at a file that also holds salaries, margins or customer details. Only the print area appears, but a generous selection can catch more than you meant.
Best practices
Design for distance. People read a screen from several meters away. Use large fonts, few columns, and strong contrast. If the text appears small in the Page Setup preview, it will appear smaller on a wall.
Keep the print area tight. Every empty row or column you include shrinks everything else. Select the table and its title, nothing more.
One dashboard, one page. A viewer catches a single page at a glance. Split a long list into pages with Fit all columns on one page and give each page enough time to read.
Build a display sheet. If the worksheet is busy, add a sheet that pulls the key figures with formulas, lay it out for the screen, and set the print area there only. Your team keeps working where they always did, and their sheets stay off the screen.
Skip what viewers do not need. If the workbook produces a cover or notes page you cannot remove, give that page a duration of 0 in the app, and it never appears.
Check Print before you leave Excel. One glance saves a trip back when the App Details panel shows six pages instead of one.
Log in with a stable Microsoft account. The connection depends on the account you sign in with, so avoid a temporary or personal account for a screen the whole office relies on.
Troubleshooting
Most issues trace back to the print settings in the Excel file. Start there.
The screen shows the wrong part of the sheet, or far more than you selected:
Check that you clicked Set Print Area with the right range selected, and that Print is set to Active sheet, not Entire workbook.
A sheet you did not want appears on screen, or one you wanted is missing:
The app converts every print area in the workbook. Open each unwanted sheet and click Print Area, then Clear Print Area. Set a print area on every sheet you do want.
The content is tiny or unreadable:
Shrink the print area to the table itself, set Scaling to Fit sheet on one page, switch to Landscape and use Narrow margins. If it is still small, the table has too many columns for one screen. Split it or build a display sheet.
Extra blank or near-empty pages:
Check that the print area does not include empty rows or columns, then check Print total in the Page Setup. Fit all columns on one page fixes a table that spills its last column onto a page of its own.
Empty space around the content on screen:
The page shape does not match the screen. Set Paper size to Legal (recommended), Orientation to Landscape, and tick both Center on page boxes.
The file does not appear when you click Choose Excel File:
Check that you signed in with the Microsoft account that holds the file, that the file sits in that account's own OneDrive rather than a SharePoint site, and that it is an Excel workbook.
A change in Excel does not reach the screen:
Check that the file saved (Excel Online saves on its own, the desktop app needs AutoSave or a manual save), that at least 5 minutes have passed (longer for a large file), that the Last Updated time in the app has moved and that the screen is online in your Screens list. If you edited the app itself, push your changes.
Microsoft shows "Need admin approval" or refuses the sign-in:
Your organization restricts which apps can access Microsoft 365. Ask your Microsoft 365 administrator to approve Yodeck, or sign in with an account your administrator has cleared for third-party apps.
The app asks you to log in again or shows an authentication error:
Check that the Microsoft account is still active and still has access to the file. Click Sign Out, then Login with Microsoft, and choose the file again if the field is empty.
Login with Microsoft returns an error straight after you sign in:
Check whether that Microsoft account is already connected to an app in another Yodeck account. A Microsoft account can only serve one Yodeck account. Sign in with a different Microsoft account, or disconnect it from the other Yodeck account first.
F.A.Q.s
Got questions? We've got answers! This section covers the questions we hear most about the Yodeck Microsoft Excel Online App.
Can I show more than one sheet from the same workbook?
Yes. Set a print area on every sheet you want on screen. The app converts each print area into its own page or pages, following the order of the sheet tabs. Sheets without a print area stay off the screen.
Can I keep one page off the screen without changing the file?
Yes. Click Set Duration for a specific Page, enter the page number, and set its duration to 0. The app skips that page and plays the rest.
Which Excel formats can I use?
Any Excel file (.xls and .xlsx) that opens in Excel Online, saved in your OneDrive.
Do I need to share the file with Yodeck or make it public?
No. You log in with your own Microsoft account, and Yodeck reads the file from your OneDrive through that login. Keep the file's sharing settings as they are.
Do charts and images appear on screen?
Yes, as long as they sit entirely within the print area. Anything outside the print areas stays off the screen.
Can I display two different Excel files on one screen?
Yes. Create one app per file and add both apps to the same playlist or layout. Each app keeps its own login and its own page durations.
What happens if the person who logged in with Microsoft leaves the company?
The connection depends on that Microsoft account. If IT disables it, the app can no longer reach the file, and your screens keep the last version it converted. Open the app, click Sign Out, log in with an active account that can open the file, and choose the file again.
Does the screen need an internet connection to keep showing the sheet?
Only to receive updates. A screen plays the last PDF it received, even while offline, and picks up the newest version as soon as it reconnects.
Can I use a single Microsoft account across all my Excel apps?
Yes, within one Yodeck account. Every app can log in with the same Microsoft account and point to a different file. The only limitation is that a single Microsoft account cannot serve two Yodeck accounts.
Need Help?
The Yodeck Support Team can help you out! Log in to your Yodeck account and send us a message from the bottom right corner!