S7-300 STEP 7 Program to PDF: Export and Document Guide

Documentation of SIMATIC S7-300 PLC programs is a recurring task for control engineers, commissioning teams, and maintenance crews. Whether the deliverable is an archive copy for a customer, a printed handover book for a maintenance technician without a STEP 7 license, or supporting material for an S7-300 to S7-1500 migration, exporting a STEP 7 project (or selected blocks) to PDF is the most portable and license-free distribution method available.

This guide covers the supported workflow inside STEP 7 V5.x and the auxiliary tooling required to produce clean, paginated PDF deliverables. It also covers the alternative ZIP archive path, block-level printouts, and migration documentation specifics.

1. Why Export S7-300 Programs to PDF

The STEP 7 programming environment used for the S7-300 family (typically STEP 7 V5.5 / V5.6, or older V5.4 SPx) is a licensed product. A recipient of a project does not need STEP 7 to read a PDF; they only need a free PDF viewer. The PDF export therefore decouples the documentation deliverable from the licensing state of the receiver's PC, from the operating system version, and from the STEP 7 Service Pack level.

Typical use cases that justify a PDF export are:

• Handover documentation shipped with a new machine where the end customer does not own a STEP 7 license.
• Acceptance test records that must include ladder (LAD), function block diagram (FBD), or statement list (STL) listings as evidence.
• Migration analyses where the legacy S7-300 source is published as a reference for the S7-1500 port, in line with the Siemens migration guide workflow.
• Field service where the engineer needs offline reference material on a tablet without STEP 7 installed.
• Audit and regulatory archives where a fixed-format, non-editable copy of the control logic must be retained.

2. Prerequisites

Before starting, verify the following items are available on the engineering workstation:

• STEP 7 V5.5 or V5.6 installed with the S7-300 PLC support package. The program can also be opened with the legacy S7-PLCSIM or with the optional S7-Graph, S7-SCL, S7-HiGraph, or S7-PDIAG add-ons, depending on the source project.
• The S7-300 program (offline copy in a .s7p project, an archived .zip, or a decompiled .awl / source file tree).
• A virtual PDF printer driver installed (see Section 4).
• Sufficient disk space. A medium-sized S7-300 program (200 blocks, 50 KByte of STL source) typically produces a 4 to 8 MByte PDF, depending on the selected symbol table and cross-reference options.
• For newer TIA Portal environments, see Section 9; the workflow is similar but the menu paths differ.

3. STEP 7 Print Configuration

STEP 7 V5.x routes every printable view (block, symbol table, reference data) through the standard Windows print spooler. The first time the user prints a block, STEP 7 prompts for the Page Setup dialog. The following parameters are recommended for clean PDF output.

3.1 Page Setup Parameters

3.2 Block Folder Print Options

In SIMATIC Manager, right-click the S7 Program > Blocks folder and select Print > Print Object. The dialog exposes a tree of selectable items:

• Block list – generates a one-line-per-block index (FB, FC, DB, OB, SFB, SFC, VAT, UDT).
• Block contents – prints each selected block in full (ladder networks, STL instructions, or SCL source).
• Symbol table – prints the global symbol table sorted by symbol or by address.
• Cross references – prints the reference data: where-used, operand overlap, and program structure.
• System data – hardware configuration, including the S7-300 rack layout and module parameterization.

4. PDF Printer Software Options

A virtual PDF printer is a Windows print driver that writes the rendered output to a .pdf file instead of paper. The following table compares the most common free and commercial options in the context of S7-300 documentation.

For a single engineering workstation, the CutePDF Writer / Foxit PDF Printer combination is the most common deployment. For enterprise documentation, PDFCreator's COM interface allows batch conversion of an entire S7 project in a single script run.

4.1 Recommended Installation Order

1. Install the chosen PDF printer driver before opening STEP 7 for the first time so that the virtual device appears in the Windows print queue immediately.
2. Reboot after the install, even if the installer does not request it; this avoids the "driver not detected" error inside STEP 7's print dialog on first use.
3. Open a sample PDF from any application to confirm the driver writes the file to the configured Documents folder.
4. Set the default output folder to a dedicated path such as C:\Project_PDF\<ProjectName>\ to keep deliverables organized.

5. Step-by-Step Export Procedure

The following procedure produces a complete, paginated PDF deliverable for an S7-300 program. Adapt the section selections to the project size.

5.1 Open the Project

1. Launch SIMATIC Manager.
2. Open the project via File > Open > User Project and navigate to the .s7p file (or unzip a .zip archive first; see Section 7).
3. Expand the S7-300 station tree to verify the offline blocks are present and that the project is in a consistent state (no yellow "offline/online mismatch" triangles).

5.2 Configure Page Setup

1. Select File > Page Setup from the menu bar.
2. Set margins, orientation, and font per Section 3.1.
3. Add a header line containing the project name, CPU article number (for example 6ES7315-2EH14-0AB0), and revision counter.
4. Click OK to commit the layout for the current print session.

5.3 Select Blocks for Print

1. Right-click the Blocks folder and choose Print > Print Object.
2. In the dialog, enable the checkboxes for: Block list, Block contents, Symbol table, Cross references, and (if needed) System data.
3. For block contents, mark only the OBs, FBs, FCs, and DBs that are part of the deliverable; skip the system blocks (SFBs/SFCs) to keep the PDF lean.
4. Click OK. The standard Windows print dialog opens.

5.4 Print to PDF

1. From the printer dropdown, select the virtual PDF driver (for example "CutePDF Writer" or "PDFCreator").
2. Click Properties if a higher resolution is needed; set 600 dpi for FBD segments with small contact labels, 300 dpi for plain STL listings.
3. Click Print. The virtual driver prompts for the output path and filename. Save as <ProjectName>_S7-300_<Revision>.pdf.
4. Open the resulting PDF and verify the pagination, especially that no block is split across two pages in a way that hides a network boundary.

5.5 Repeat for Source Files (SCL / S7-Graph)

For projects containing SCL or S7-Graph sources, export the source files as well, because the generated PDF from compiled blocks does not show SCL comments. Right-click the Sources folder, choose Generate Source as STL/SCL if a compiled view is missing, then open the source in the SCL or STL editor and print it to PDF.

6. Block-Level Documentation

When the full project PDF is too large (exceeding 100 MByte) for a single email attachment, export the program block-by-block and concatenate the files with a free PDF tool such as PDFCreator or Foxit PDF Editor. The recommended block-by-block sequence is:

1. OB1 (and other OBs) – main cyclic logic, error OBs (OB82, OB86, OB100, OB121, OB122).
2. FBs in numerical order, with each FB followed by its instance DB.
3. FCs in numerical order.
4. Shared DBs in numerical order, with the structure (UDT definition printed first if used).
5. Symbol table – single PDF, sorted by address.
6. Cross references – produced via Options > Reference Data > Display, then File > Print.

Concatenate the files in this order to produce a single deliverable that follows the natural reading order of the S7-300 program: cyclic tasks, reusable functions, shared data, and finally the naming and reachability maps.

7. Alternative Export: ZIP Archive

When the recipient owns STEP 7, the most lossless handover is the project archive rather than a PDF. STEP 7 V5.x includes File > Archive / File > Retrieve which produces a .zip file containing the .s7p project. To produce a ZIP manually for the same purpose:

1. Close the project in SIMATIC Manager.
2. Navigate to the project folder in Windows Explorer.
3. Select the project root folder (the one containing the .s7p file).
4. Right-click > Send to > Compressed (zipped) folder.
5. Name the archive <ProjectName>_<CPU>_<FW>_<Date>.zip, for example PumpStation_CPU315-2PNDP_FW3.3.7_2024-09-12.zip.

The ZIP archive preserves the offline project exactly, including SCL sources, HW Config, NetPro, and the symbol table. It is the recommended primary deliverable, with the PDF as a secondary human-readable reference.

8. S7-300 to S7-1500 Migration Documentation

For engineers executing the Siemens-supported migration path from S7-300 to S7-1500, the PDF export plays a specific role: the legacy program is the reference implementation against which the TIA Portal port is validated. The Guide for Migrating SIMATIC S7-300/S7-400 to SIMATIC S7-1500 recommends archiving the original S7-300 source in a non-proprietary form so that the S7-1500 program can be regression-tested against the original logic.

Recommended export for a migration project:

1. Export the S7-300 program to PDF per Sections 5-6.
2. Export the S7-300 program to ZIP per Section 7.
3. Generate a TIA Portal V17 (or later) port of the program. Export the TIA Portal project to PDF via the TIA Portal Project tree > Documentation or the Print project function.
4. Bind the two PDFs in the same folder with a versioned name: PumpStation_S7-300_revA.pdf and PumpStation_S7-1500_revA.pdf. Cross-reference the block list of both documents for review.

9. TIA Portal Variation (S7-300 in TIA)

STEP 7 V5.x and TIA Portal are separate development environments. The S7-300 can be programmed in either, but TIA Portal only supports a subset of S7-300 CPUs (those listed in the TIA Portal hardware catalog under "SIMATIC S7-300"). When the source project is already a TIA Portal project, the PDF workflow differs slightly:

• Open the project in TIA Portal.
• Select Project tree > PLC_1 > Program blocks.
• Right-click the Program blocks folder and choose Print or use the Documentation editor (Project tree > Documentation).
• The TIA Portal print engine can produce PDF directly via the Microsoft Print to PDF driver or any installed virtual printer.
• Use Project > Archive to produce the TIA-equivalent of the S7-300 ZIP archive.

For projects originally created in STEP 7 V5.x and migrated to TIA Portal via the migration tool, the original STEP 7 V5.x PDF remains the authoritative reference; the TIA Portal PDF is a derived artifact.

10. Troubleshooting Matrix

11. Verification

After the PDF is produced, perform the following verification before distributing the file:

1. Open the PDF in a viewer that is independent of the generation tool (for example, SumatraPDF or Adobe Reader). Confirm the page count matches the expected number of blocks plus symbol table plus cross references.
2. Spot-check three blocks: the first OB1 page, the middle FB, and the last DB. Verify that the operand addresses (for example I 0.0, DB10.DBD4) are visible, that the comments are present, and that the network delimiters are clean.
3. Search test: use the PDF viewer's search function to look for a known symbol (for example MOTOR_RUN). The search must return the expected number of hits and the hits must be on the correct page.
4. Cross-reference integrity: compare a printed cross reference against the offline cross-reference view in STEP 7 (menu Options > Reference Data > Display). The hit counts must match.
5. Hash the file with SHA-256 and record the hash in the project release notes so the recipient can verify that the PDF has not been altered in transit.
6. Open the ZIP archive on a second PC to confirm that the .s7p opens cleanly in STEP 7 V5.5 or later. This is the strongest integrity test for the working copy.

12. Field-Proven Tips

• Stamp the watermark: Use the PDF printer's stamp / overlay feature to add a watermark such as "AS BUILT - Rev B" on every page. This is faster than opening each PDF in an editor afterwards.
• Use a master template: Save a STEP 7 .s7p template with a pre-configured Page Setup and a populated header/footer. Every new project that descends from this template will inherit the print configuration.
• Batch print across stations: When the project contains multiple S7-300 stations (line + line + line), set up a SIMATIC Manager multi-project (.s7f) and run the print across all stations in one pass.
• Include the changelog: Append a one-page revision history (project > right-click > Object properties > History) at the end of the PDF so the recipient sees which firmware and which STEP 7 SP the export was taken from.
• Sanitize customer data: Before sending a PDF outside the company, mask any IP addresses in NetPro, any serial numbers in the hardware configuration, and any usernames in the PLC's password list (S7-300 CPUs from 6ES731x-xxx10-0AB0 onwards support password protection).
• Keep the source offline: The PDF is a snapshot. Store the original offline project (and the .zip archive) in a versioned source-control system or in a Siemens PLM / Teamcenter vault. The PDF is a derivative artifact and should never replace the source.