Exporting results

Summary#

Every tool result can leave Metric Vault as one of four files: a PDF, an Excel workbook, a CSV or a JSON file. The buttons sit in a row on the tool screen, exports are built in your browser from the result in front of you, they cost no credits, and they are not restricted by plan. This page covers what each format actually contains, what your file will be called, and which surfaces produce a file rather than something else.

Purpose#

A report that cannot leave the platform is only half useful. Different audiences need different objects: a client wants a document, an analyst wants rows, and a developer wants the raw payload. So rather than one export that suits nobody, the same result is offered in four shapes.

The exports are also built from a single structured model of the result rather than by photographing the screen. That is why the PDF has selectable text and sensible page breaks instead of being a large image of a dark web page, and why a chart can still reach a spreadsheet even though a spreadsheet cannot draw it.

Requirements#

• A signed-in account and a finished result on screen.
• Nothing else. Exports are not gated by plan, do not use credits, and do not count against your monthly quota.

Two libraries load in the background after the page. If you press Export PDF or Export Excel within the first moments of a fresh page load you may see PDF engine is still loading. Try again in a moment. or the Excel equivalent. Waiting a second and clicking again is the entire fix.

Permissions#

Every plan can export, including Free. Anyone in your workspace can export a result they can see. Exported files contain whatever the result contained, so treat them with the same care as the underlying data.

Navigation Path#

Dashboard → any tool → run it → the export row above or below the result

The row is the same everywhere, in this order:

Export PDF · Export Excel · Export CSV · Export JSON · Share public link

The format is bound to the button itself rather than to its wording, so exports behave identically in all six interface languages. See Changing the language.

The row appears only on screens that produce a result. Pages that configure or manage things rather than run an analysis — Integrations, Keyword Rank Alerts, the Keyword and Competitor Vaults, and the Live Writing Editor — have no export row; the two Vaults have their own Export CSV button on their action bar instead.

Step-by-Step Guide#

1. Run the tool and wait for the result to finish rendering. See How to run a tool.
2. Press the format you want in the export row.
3. A progress dialog appears reading Preparing PDF…, Preparing Excel…, Preparing CSV… or Preparing JSON… with a line explaining what is being built.
4. The file downloads to your browser's downloads folder. The dialog changes to PDF downloaded (or the matching format) with the note "Saved to your downloads folder.", and a toast confirms Exported as PDF.
5. Close the dialog. Nothing has changed on the screen behind it; you can export the same result again in another format immediately.

Exports follow the view you are on#

On results that are grouped into category tabs (see Executive summaries and result tabs), the export buttons export what the active view shows:

• On a tab — Summary, Graphs, Data, and so on — the file contains only that tab's content. The file name gains the tab's name (for example …-keyword-overview-nike.com-data-2026-08-12.csv), and the document itself states the view it was taken from, so a Summary PDF is never mistaken for the whole report.
• In the View Full Report view, entered with the button right after the tabs, the export contains the complete report, including the raw data the tool returned. That button also opens a standalone copy in a new tab; the export buttons still act on the page you are already on.
• On results without tabs nothing changes: the export always contains the whole report.

So: to hand a spreadsheet of just the keyword rows to a colleague, open the Data tab and press Export CSV; to archive everything, press View Full Report first and then export.

Share public link is not scoped — it always publishes the whole report with every tab expanded, whatever is on screen.

What each format contains#

The engine builds one structured model of the result: the KPI tiles, every section with a heading, every table, and every chart. When the export covers the whole report it then merges in the raw data the tool returned, so sections that render as cards or prose rather than tables are not lost. A tab-scoped export skips that merge on purpose — the raw response holds the whole report, and stitching it in would put the other tabs' data back into a Summary file. Each format is a view of that same model.

PDF#

A print-quality A4 portrait document with real, selectable, searchable text.

Tables repeat their header row across page breaks and use alternating row shading, so a long keyword table stays readable. Charts appear as their underlying data table rather than as a picture; see Charts and visualizations.

Excel#

An .xlsx workbook with one sheet per section.

• The first sheet is always Summary: the report title, the subject, the generation timestamp, and then a Metric / Value / Detail table of the KPI tiles.
• Every section of the report becomes its own sheet, named after the section. Names are shortened to fit Excel's 31-character sheet-name limit, and duplicates are numbered rather than overwritten.
• Column widths are set from the widest cell in each column, so numbers do not arrive as a row of hash marks.

CSV#

A single comma-separated file containing the same blocks one after another, written as UTF-8 with a byte-order mark so that Excel opens accented characters correctly. Use CSV when the destination is a spreadsheet import or a script and you only need one table; use Excel when the report has several sections you want kept apart.

JSON#

The raw response the tool returned, together with the structured model built from the screen, formatted with two-space indentation. This is the format to use when another system will read the file. On a full-report export it is also the only format that will still produce a download when the on-screen result could not be modelled, which makes it a useful fallback. A tab-scoped JSON contains only the active tab's model (with a view field naming the tab) and omits the raw response, for the same reason the merge is skipped above.

File names#

Every export is named to the same pattern:

metricvault-<report title>[-<subject>][-<view>]-<YYYY-MM-DD>.<extension>

The <view> part appears only on tab-scoped exports and names the tab the file was taken from, for example -summary or -data.

Titles and subjects are lower-cased, punctuation becomes hyphens, and each part is trimmed to 48 characters. A Domain Overview of a client run on 6 August 2026 downloads as something like metricvault-domain-overview-acme-com-2026-08-06.pdf. Because the date is in the name, a folder of exports sorts chronologically on its own.

What is stripped from every export#

Interface furniture never reaches a file: icons, buttons, inputs, dropdowns, sort arrows, screen-reader-only text, in-table search boxes, row counters and zero-row toggles. Sort-arrow glyphs and invisible spacing characters are cleaned out of cell text as well, so a column reads Rank rather than Rank ⇅.

Cells built from several elements are joined with a space rather than run together, which is why a keyword row exports as 1 nike and not 1nike.

Which surfaces produce a file, and which do not#

This is the part that most often surprises people. Not every button labelled "export" writes a file, and the surfaces differ.

Exporting a result you ran days ago#

Exports are built from the result on screen, so exporting an old run is a two-step job:

1. Open Library → Saved Work, open the tool's folder, and press Open on the run.
2. Either use Download JSON in the viewer for the data, or press Run fresh if you need a live result you can export in every format.

Reopening is free; running fresh costs the tool's normal credits. See Saved Work.

Examples#

Screenshots#

Tips#

• Let the result finish before you click. Almost every failed export is a click that arrived a second early.
• Choose the format by the reader: PDF for people, Excel or CSV for spreadsheets, JSON for systems.
• Export from the tool screen rather than from a history screen; the tool screen is where the full result lives.
• Exporting the same result twice in different formats costs nothing extra.

Best Practices#

• Export anything you need beyond 90 days on the day you run it. Saved results are purged after that; see Saving a result.
• Keep exports in a folder per client. The date in the filename does the sorting.
• For client-facing work, decide up front whether the deliverable is a file or a link. A share link stays current in the browser and can carry your branding; a PDF is a fixed record. See Sharing a result by link and White-label reports.
• If a report is very large, prefer Excel over CSV so each section stays on its own sheet.

Common Mistakes#

• Expecting Report History's Export All to write a file. It opens the print dialog.
• Exporting CSV from a result with no tables. A screen of cards, charts and prose has little for CSV to write. Use PDF or JSON.
• Exporting after a page reload. JSON reads the data returned in this browser session. After a reload, reopen the saved result and use its Download JSON.
• Sending a PDF when the client wanted a live link, or the reverse. Ask first.

Limitations#

• Four formats only: PDF, Excel, CSV and JSON. There is no Google Sheets, Word or PowerPoint export.
• There is no bulk export of several saved results at once.
• There is no scheduled export; scheduling covers runs, not files. See Scheduled reports.
• Files you download carry the Metric Vault header band and footer. The surface that carries your own branding is the public share page; see White-label reports.
• Exports have no API. See API overview for programmatic access to results.

Troubleshooting#

The complete message-by-message list, including share-link failures, is in Export or PDF problems.

FAQs#

Do exports cost credits? No. Exports are built in your browser from a result you already paid for. They do not touch your quota.

Is exporting limited by plan? No. Every plan can export in every format, including Free.

Where do the files go? To your browser's normal downloads location. The confirmation says "Saved to your downloads folder."

Why does my CSV have fewer sections than the PDF? CSV is one flat file, and some report sections are not tabular. Excel keeps each section on its own sheet, and JSON contains everything.

How do charts appear in an export? As their data. A chart becomes a table with a label column and one column per series. See Charts and visualizations.

Can I export several saved results in one go? No. Exports are per result.

Can I automate exports? No. You can automate the runs with Scheduled reports, but the file itself is produced by pressing an export button.

Does an export include the AI recommendations panel? The recommendations panel is a separate step below the result. Generate it first if you want its content in the document. See Get Recommendations.