Convert email messages and attachments to PDF in Outlook

Transcript

Archiving email messages for a project can be an invaluable reference. Or, converting a PowerPoint attachment to PDF without ever leaving Outlook is a simple way to deliver information more professionally. When you install Acrobat DC, you have the option of installing the PDFmaker Add On, which creates this tab in Outlook. This is a Windows only feature, and if you’re unable to access the PDFmaker Add On, please contact your organization’s IT department. Once the add on is installed, when you create a new message and open the Acrobat tab, you’ll see that you can attach any type of file and automatically convert it to PDF without ever opening Acrobat. I’ll attach this very large 48 MB PowerPoint presentation.

And when you convert to PDF, you can also protect your PDF from anyone editing the content by selecting restrict editing, you can disallow printing or any changes.

For now, I’m going to go ahead and cancel and just save the file.

And it will be automatically converted to PDF through the PDFmaker Add On.

And notice how the resulting file is significantly smaller at 2 MB than the original 48 MB file—creating a much better experience for your email recipient.

You may notice another Adobe tool in Outlook. The tool Attach File via Link will actually upload the attachment to Document Cloud and create a link to that file. So let’s go ahead and attach this PowerPoint file again.

It’ll upload the file to the Document Cloud and create a link to it, creating a very professional experience for whoever receives your email.

Now, this tool is not part of the PDFmaker Add On.

which is available for free in the Microsoft AppSource. It’s only available with an Acrobat DC subscription for teams or enterprise.

Please contact your organization’s IT department if you’re unable to access this tool.

Now, when you need to archive messages to PDF, just click on the Acrobat tab in Outlook.

Here you’ll find three tools: Convert, Preferences, and Archive. Be sure to check out the Change Conversion Settings or your Preferences. This is where you can control global settings like automatically restricting editing of your PDFs when you create them. You can convert selected email messages to PDF in the Acrobat tab or by right clicking on the message. Now, when you do this, you can create a new PDF or append to an existing PDF file. So if you have a PDF file for a specific project you’re working on. You can just keep adding email messages to it. I’ll go ahead and convert this message that has an attachment. When the dialog appears, notice that you can again restrict the editing to the PDF.

Now, inside the resulting PDF file, you can see your entire messages with links to the attachments as well.

Now you can also convert entire folders to PDF in the toolbar or simply by right clicking on a folder and selecting Convert to PDF or Append to PDF.

Now to automate the process of converting your email messages to PDF, just select Setup Automatic Archival. In the dialog, select the time and date you’d like to archive a folder to PDF. And that’s it. Now you have a manual or automated way to archive all of your emails and create professional experiences for the recipients of your email messages.