I love OS X’s ability to print to PDF. I often do it with emails that I want to reference or easily share. What’s really great is that, with OS X Mountain Lion, you can print to PDF and send the result directly to iCloud for instant, near ubiquitous access across your compatible devices. Here’s how to print an email as a PDF and send it to Preview via iCloud.
- Find the message you’d like to save and click Print.
- The Print sheet appears. Select Save As PDF in the lower left-hand corner.
- The Save As sheet appears. Select a destination. In this case, choose iCloud from the drop-down menu.
- A new sheet appears. Create a title and fill in the rest as desired. Ensure that iCloud (Preview) is selected.
- Click Save.
That’s it. The next time you launch Preview, select Open from the File menu and click iCloud on the resulting window. Your PDF will be waiting for you.
For extra bonus points, you can password-protect your PDF as you create it. Before clicking Save, click Security Options. You can opt to require a password to view, edit or print the resulting PDF. When you try to open the file on Preview, it will require a password as you’ve directed.
This post is part is one of 31 tech tips I published in March, 2013. You’ll find the rest here.
Interesting. I can see how this might be useful if one uses more than one Mac with iCloud. Does this benefit iOS users?
I save all my online receipts like this – instead of depending on an email from a company. When the receipt comes up, click print this receipt or whatever, make sure my printer is “save to PDF” (save to PDF at the dropdown at the bottom), then proceed as you describe and save to iCloud with a preview. It feels good to have the receipts immediately available.