There’s two different ways you can download a Google Data Studio report. Downloading the report as a PDF and downloading the underlying data.
For reasons unknown, many executives and stakeholders refuse to click on a link that opens in their browsers. They prefer everything be a PDF that is attached in an email. For these ad hoc requests, a digital analyst is forced to download their beautiful and automated creation to send in an email.
If you’re faced with this scenario, Google Data Studio makes it as easy as possible to download the report to a PDF.
How to Download a Data Studio Report to a PDF
- Ensure you’re signed into a Google account. If you’re in an incognito browser and not signed into any account, this will not work.
- Open the dashboard you wish to download.
- Click on the drop down link in the top right hand corner next to “Share”
- Click “Download Report”
- Select “All Pages” or “Select Pages” and select which pages to download.
In the “Additional Options” field, there’s also a handy option to password protect your file. If the data you’re feeding into Data Studio is sensitive, then this is a great add on. For most of us though, it’ll never get used.
Another handy feature is downloading the data of an underlying chart or graph. This is especially useful if you’re using custom segments or calculated fields.
How to Download The Underlying Data in a Data Studio Report
An added feature that I didn’t think too much of until recently is the ability to download the underlying data of a chart, graph, or table. Generally if I had to do an ad hoc analysis, I would go to Google Analytics or whatever my data source was and do it there. If you have a some customization built into your reports though, there’s a much easier way.
Instead of heading to your data source or changing your report to match your one time analysis, it’s much better to change the date range of your report and download the underlying data.
- Ensure you’re signed into a Google account. If you’re in an incognito browser and not signed into any account, this will not work.
- Open the dashboard you wish to download.
- Hover over the top right portion of the graph or table until 3 vertical dots appear.
- Click on the dots and select download.
Now that you have the data in excel, you can do a quick analysis to get whatever ad hoc answer you were searching for.
If you’d like to copy (AKA Steal) a Data Studio report template, checkout the guide to Copying a Data Studio Report.
Or check out all of your sharing options at Sharing a Data Studio Report.