Export a PDF logbook

What this does

Produces a print-ready PDF of your logbook, laid out in the column format of the authority you choose, with a running total and a signature line on every page.

Before you start

• A profile is open and has flights in it.
• PDF export is a Pro feature, as is FAA 8710-1 Section III. The other four formats — CSV (logbook), TSV (logbook, tab-delimited), CSV (all entities, .zip) and Excel (.xlsx) — are free, forever. The free 100-hour limit caps what a logbook records, not what leaves it: a free logbook exports in full.
• Drafts aren’t in the PDF. Finish any you want printed first (→ C3).

Steps

1. On the Logbook screen, tap ⋮ (More Actions) and choose Export Data. The item names one format but opens all six.

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   The Import / Export / Backup modal opens with the Export segment already selected. (If you open it another way — the dashboard’s Import / Export / Backup card, or ⋮ (More Actions) → Import Data — it opens on Import, so tap Export.)

   

2. Under Output Format, leave File format on PDF — Jurisdiction-formatted, print-ready logbook. It’s already selected.

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3. On a free logbook, check the notice under the dropdown: PDF and regulatory exports are a Pro feature. CSV and Excel are always free — your data is yours to take any time. Tapping Export or Preview opens the upgrade screen, where you’ll find what it costs.

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4. Check Pilot Information — Pilot Name, Address (two lines) and License Number — and edit any that need changing for this export. They’re filled in for you (see Gotchas).
5. Set Date Range if you want to — Start Date and End Date. Both are optional, both show All time until you set them, and each can be cleared again. This is the only way to narrow the export: the filters and the search box on the Logbook screen have no effect on it.

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6. Under Options, choose Include Summary Page — First page with pilot info and statistics, on by default — and Include Page Numbers — Show page numbers at bottom. (The three sections above, Logbook Format, Page Format and Font, set the authority layout, the paper and the typeface — see F2.)
7. Tap Export, then choose where to save. The dialog offers the name logbook_YYYYMMDD.pdf.

Preview, beside Export, opens your system print dialog instead of saving a file. Use it to check a layout before you commit to it. It needs Pro, the same as Export.

How to tell it worked

The button goes from Exporting… back to Export, and a message reads Logbook exported successfully! Open the file. Its first page is headed PILOT LOGBOOK, with Pilot logbook — and the citation beneath it (Personal log — on the TCCA layout), then PILOT INFORMATION and LOGBOOK SUMMARY — total flights and total flight time, and on every layout but EASA a breakdown by role and condition. From and To only appear if you set a date range, and they show the dates you set, not the first and last flights in the book.

Every page after that is a flight page:

• column group headings across the top, and one line per flight, oldest first (whatever your Logbook screen is sorted by)
• your name and licence number in the header, with Total Time to date at the right
• three lines at the foot of the table — Brought forward / Page total / Carried forward
• beneath them, the certification strip — I certify that the entries on this page are true and that the totals carried forward are correct to the best of my knowledge. — with ruled Signature and Date lines.

If something goes wrong

Reference: the export panel

Gotchas

Pilot Name and Licence Number come from your Directory record; Address doesn’t. Update either on your own Directory record (→ A9) and it shows up here next time. Address has nowhere to live in your logbook, so it’s kept on this device only, from whatever you last typed into this panel — a second device starts with it blank. Editing any of the three fields here changes what’s filled in for future exports on this device, without touching your Directory record.

The PILOT INFORMATION block prints if any one of the three fields has something in it. Fill in only License Number and the block still prints, holding that one line. Leave all three blank and the block is left out. The page headers, which print Pilot Name and License Number separately from the summary page, aren’t affected either way.

Turning off page numbers doesn’t clear the footer. Include Page Numbers removes Page X of Y, and nothing else. The authority acronym and the regulation citation stay on every sheet, so a loose page still says which rule it was written under.

Brought forward is real, and it’s why page one isn’t zero. It carries your Previous Experience opening balance plus every flight dated before your Start Date. A date range changes what prints, never what counts. That’s why the last page of a date-limited export shows the same Carried forward as an export of the whole logbook.

A simulator session prints with its flight-time columns blank. A session counts as a simulator session when it has a device class — either its own, set in the entry form’s Simulator / FTD session block, or one on the aircraft type it’s logged against (→ E4). Its duration appears in the FTD column on the FAA layout, the Ground column on TCCA and CAANZ, and the FSTD SESSION pair on EASA, which also prints the device class itself. Only CASA has no device column: there the duration prints nowhere on the flight line — the Day and Night cells are blank, and no other column shows the block time — though it’s still totalled on the summary page under Simulator (FFS / FTD). On every layout it’s left out of Total Time to date in the page header, because that’s the figure the certification strip beneath the table affirms.

Previous Experience never prints as a flight line. If you entered 480 hours as an opening balance, don’t look for a 480-hour line in the table — there isn’t one. Previous Experience is your opening balance: it moves the Brought forward and Carried forward lines and the Total Time to date figure in the page header, and appears nowhere else, not even in the summary page’s Total Flight Time (→ B7).

Handwriting fonts stay readable, because they only apply to your own cells. The nine faces apply to what you entered — times, registrations, remarks. Column headings, the citation and the certification strip stay in a plain typeface whatever you choose, so Caveat or Indie Flower produces a form that looks handwritten rather than one nobody can read.

The app prints the layout, not the approval. It prints the authority’s column layout and the regulation citation. Whether an authority accepts a printed PDF as your logbook of record is that authority’s decision, and not something the app can settle for you. For what Canada’s rules say about keeping your log electronically, see Are electronic pilot logbooks legal in Canada? in the library.

Worked example

One pilot, one logbook: 1,240 flights totalling 3,980.5 hours, plus 120.0 hours of Previous Experience entered under SEL. No simulator sessions. They keep the EASA layout on A4 Landscape, set Start Date to 2024-01-01 and leave End Date empty.

Of those flights, 1,010 are dated before 2024 and total 3,180.0 hours. The other 230 flights, totalling 800.5 hours, are the ones that print. An EASA A4 landscape page holds 20 flight lines, so the first page carries 20 of them — say 46.0 hours between them.

Each of the three totals lines prints a figure under every numeric column: SE, ME, multi-pilot, landings, night, IFR and each pilot-function column all get their own running total. Go down the TOTAL column and the three lines say:

and Total Time to date in the top-right of that page reads 3,346.0 — the same figure, because the EASA TOTAL column and the header total are worked out the same way, both leaving out simulator sessions.

EASA and UK CAA are the only layouts with a TOTAL column. On FAA, TCCA, CASA and CAANZ the same running total exists only as those per-column figures, so there’s no single Carried forward number to compare the header against.

On the last page, Carried forward reads 4,100.5: 120.0 + 3,980.5.

Now clear Start Date and export again. Every flight prints, so page one is a different page — it carries the 20 oldest flights in the book, and its Brought forward is 120.0, because the only thing before the first printed flight is now the opening balance. The figure that doesn’t move is the last page’s Carried forward: 4,100.5 either way.

That’s the rule as arithmetic: a date range decides which flights are printed, never which flights are counted.