Guides
Presenting spreadsheets in court as exhibits
A spreadsheet is not a document. It is a grid that happens to be displayed on a screen of a particular size, and turning it into pages is an editorial act that somebody has to perform deliberately.
Left to its defaults, a wide spreadsheet prints the first six columns on page one and the remaining three on page four, with no header row to say what they are. The result is an exhibit nobody can read, including the witness who built the file. Page breaks and print areas are therefore not formatting trivia; they decide whether the exhibit works.
There is a second, quieter issue. A spreadsheet contains things a printout does not show: formulas, hidden columns, other worksheets, filtered-out rows, and comments. Know what is in the file before you decide what to print from it.
Preparing the file as a PDF
Exhibit Room imports PDFs only, so the spreadsheet has to be printed or exported to PDF, and this is the step where the exhibit is actually created.
Work through four settings in the spreadsheet application before you export. Set the print area to the range that matters rather than letting the software guess; a tracker with three hundred rows of which twelve are relevant may not need all three hundred. Choose landscape orientation for anything wider than about six columns. Use fit to width — one page wide, as many pages tall as it takes — so that columns are never split across sheets; "fit to one page" in both directions is the setting that produces four-point type, so avoid it. Finally, set the header row to repeat on every page, which in Excel is Page Layout then Print Titles, and in Google Sheets is under the print dialog's headers and footers options.
Then check the export before it becomes an exhibit. Are hidden columns hidden on purpose, and are you comfortable that they are absent? Are filtered rows excluded in a way you can explain? Does the last page carry a stray total from a range you did not intend to include? Add row and column headings to the printout if the witness will be asked about "cell F14" — that is a print option too, and it makes the transcript intelligible. Related conversion advice sits on the invoices page, and grouping advice on how to organize trial exhibits.
Presenting it in Exhibit Room
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Import the exported PDF and name it for the data
Drag the file in, and name the exhibit for what the table shows and the period it covers — "Cost tracker, Jan–Jun" — rather than the workbook file name. If several worksheets became several PDFs, each one is its own exhibit.
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Number it and record which rows matter
Set the exhibit number and use the description for the page and row references you will need. On a five-page landscape table, "p.3, rows 41–44" is the difference between finding the data instantly and scrolling while a witness waits.
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Bracket the rows or the column, then label the total
A rectangle around a block of rows works better than a highlight on a table, because the grid lines already carry color. Use an arrow into the total at the foot of a column, and a callout where a column heading is an abbreviation only the author understands.
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Present in landscape and fit the width
Press Present, then W to fit the page width, which is almost always right for a landscape table. Use + to enlarge a block of figures once the witness has seen the whole table, and F to return to the full page so the room can see where the block sits.
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Walk the pages in order and say where you are
Use the arrow keys or PageUp and PageDown to move through a multi-page table, and say the page number aloud as you go because the repeated header row makes every page look alike. Typing a page number and pressing Enter jumps straight to a known page.
What to highlight and what to avoid
Highlight the column that answers the question and the row that contains the transaction, and mark their intersection if a single cell is the point. Where a witness will be asked to compare two periods, mark both and nothing between them.
Avoid putting a three-hundred-row table on a screen and expecting anyone to follow it; extract the relevant rows into a shorter table, prepare it as its own page, and offer it as an illustrative exhibit if the court will take one. Avoid exhibits that show formulas rather than values unless the formula is the dispute. Avoid hiding columns to tidy up a printout without noting that you did, because the missing column is the first thing the other side will ask about. And avoid conditional formatting colors that mean something to the author and nothing to the jury — either explain the color scheme or turn it off before exporting.
Frequently asked questions
Can I import an .xlsx file directly?
No. Exhibit Room imports PDFs only, so the workbook has to be exported or printed to PDF first. That constraint is also an opportunity, because it forces someone to decide what the printed exhibit should actually contain.
How do I deal with a table that is genuinely too wide?
Split it deliberately: export the identifying columns plus one group of data columns as one exhibit, and repeat for the next group, keeping the key column on every page. Uncontrolled splitting across pages is what makes wide tables unusable.
Should I produce the native file as well?
Frequently yes, and often it is required by a pre-trial order or a production request. The PDF is what you display; the native file is what the other side inspects.
Is there a way to sort or filter the table during presentation?
No. What you exported is what the courtroom sees. If two orderings both matter, export both and make them two exhibits.
Get a wide table onto a readable page
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