How to open a PDF file in Mail on the iPad

[Music] hi everyone this is michael from touch PI TV with a quick video tutorial explaining how to open PDF documents on the iPad the idea behind this video tutorial came from readers of my blog after I wrote a post entitled create PDF on iPad save documents web pages and emails to PDF the post basically explains how folks can convert documents from different file formats like for example a Microsoft Word document or a photo inside the camera roll to a PDF document using the app PDF Converter so now that you have this little bit of background information let's move on with this tutorial on how to open PDF documents on the iPad there are basically two easy methods one can use to open and view a PDF document on the iPad in this tutorial we're going to be covering these two number one we're going to be opening and view a document using the built-in quick look mode inside the iOS operating system and number 2 we're going to open and view our document utilizing already installed apps inside the iPad with the open end feature to begin our tutorial let's start by going to the home screen and locate the mail app I would say that maybe 95% of all new documents for some folks anyway arrive via an email and that's why I want to start here so let's go ahead and locate the mail app and open it so another you selected and open the mail application you'll notice the screen is split into two the left side shows a list of all the emails you received while the right side previews the email you've selected in my example here I received two emails the quickest way to find out if any of these two emails contains an attachment is by looking at the email itself in iOS or the operating system that the iPhone or an iPad uses if an email shows the paperclip icon this means the email contains an attachment it's also important to know that there are different types files that can be attached and sent via email for example if someone sends you a photo you'll also see the paperclip icon to find out what kind of fire was sent inside an email we need to familiarize ourselves with learning a little bit about file extensions what is a file extension a file extension describes what kind or type the file is for example the email of selected here lets me know that it contains a PDF attachment how do I know this by looking at the file extension of the document to find the file extension of a document look at the document name and right after the dot or period you can see its file extension since we're looking for a PDF we need to see if an email document has a PDF after the dot or a period does it yes it does now that we found out that this email contains an attached PDF file our next step is to open it and view it to open and view our document we simply need to touch and hold anywhere inside the body of the email for a second or two then very quickly you'll get prompted with another menu this menu basically shows a list of apps that can open your PDF document if you look closely at the menu you'll notice that right inside you're prompted with a variety of actions you can take with your PDF document for example by selecting the print app you can print document by selecting the mail app you can resend a document to someone else and if you select quick look you'll be able to view the document right away after selecting quick look this is what my PDF document looks like now if I hover up to the upper right side of the screen and select this icon I'll open up the pop-up menu again but you'll notice at this time the quick look app is not included that's because we are already using the quick look view now from this menu selection we have the option of opening up our PDF document using any of the apps listed in this menu box in iOS this is done by using the opening feature for this tutorial we're going to open our PDF document using the second method to open and view our PDF document using one of my favorite PDF editors on the iPad call PDF pen by Smile this is what our PDF attachment looks like when we open it in PDF pen for iPad you can see there's not that much different from when we open the same PDF and quick look but there is one point that I would like to bring to your attention if you're looking to work mobile on a platform like the iPad and that is that unlike a desktop computer or a laptop where you have more flexibilities with memory for file storage at the moment the current storage capacity on the iPad compared to those other platforms are very small for example the current iPad models are able to hold 16 32 and 64 gigs of memory while a laptop can be purchased within an internal or external hard drive capable of surpassing the 64 gigs so what does this mean to you in the practical world and is this considered a disadvantage not at all for one as more cloud-based storage services pop up and consumers become more confident in this technology my two cents in this matter is that more people would tend to look towards going in the direction of saving other digital properties inside cloud-based storage services and lessen physical and hardware-based solutions regardless if they work on a desktop laptop or mobile on a tablet plus the great advantage of having all your information stored up in the cloud is that you'll have access to it at any time so taking this back to our topic on PDF after you viewed your PDF where are you going to keep it I wouldn't recommend just leaving your PDF inside the email and opening it every time you need it but what I would recommend doing especially if you're working with a lot of PDFs on the iPad is to look into apps that offer methods of syncing or uploading or your PDFs to cloud-based storage services two of the services that I like our Apple's own iCloud service and Dropbox now let's get back to our PDF that was open previously with PDF pen for iPad and the reason why I want to come back to this is so that you can get a better picture of managing your PDFs using document storage in the cloud so what we're seeing at the moment is a screenshot of the document directory inside PDF pen for iPad on the right side up here we find our PDF followed by some other folders and PDF files if you look closely up here you can see where this folder holding all this stuff is coming from this is the Dropbox icon and this is the name of the folder we're looking in so just to clarify we're looking inside folder on the Dropbox server where all these documents have been saved how well anytime a PDF document is open in PDF pen for iPad the app will synchronize and update automatically this folder on the Dropbox server also if you make any changes like adding a signature to a document or any other type of edits these changes will also be automatically updated now don't get too shaken up if all this sounds a bit technically at first I can assure you that the more you play with this new type of technology that you'll be an expert in no time to help start your way to become this expert working with PDF on the iPad I put together a list of 6 essential apps that will help you along this journey these six apps have what I considered some of the best features for editing managing and saving you all your PDFs on your favorite tablet these six apps are Evernote Skitch Google Drive PDF pen for iPad good reader for iPad and Dropbox to learn how to build a productive PDF workflow using these apps follow link below the video to the website tools an application there you'll find more helpful tutorials like this one plus our tips and tricks on how to use these and many more apps to supercharge your iPad experience before we end let's do a quick recap of what we've learned we've looked at how to find an attached PDF file inside an email by looking for the file extension of the attachment we learned how to view a PDF right from inside the mail app with quick look and also learn how to open a PDF and other apps using the open in feature in iOS then we went over a quick overview of cloud storage and some of its benefits followed by my list of six essential apps to help you get started working with PDF on the iPad I hope that you found value in this tutorial and I hope that if you had questions that they were answered learning is a wonderful experience and it should never stop with that being said if you haven't already I would encourage you to subscribe to this channel to stay connected with more video tutorials like this one [Music]

Channel: TouchPie

Views: 85,623

Keywords: Portable Document Format (File Format), PDF on iPad, iPad tutorials, save PDF on iPad, open PDF on iPad, made with explain everything

Id: _GTP1TO_Y2E

Length: 9min 35sec (575 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 30 2013