How do I Change Outlook Attachments to PDF?

  

Rollins Duke   
Published: September 8th, 2025 • 6 Min Read

Want to change Outlook email attachment to PDF? Unfortunately in Outlook, there is no native option to ‘Save as PDF’ unlike in Excel, Word, or PowerPoint. So, if you are a frequent Outlook user then the following guide will help you to create a PDF document page from an email attachment in Microsoft Outlook.

You can attach any type of document to your Outlook email message. Remember, however, that in order to view it, beneficiaries will need a program similar to the one you used to create the attachment on their machine.

Therefore, it is ideal to attach a file format that can be read by anyone who accepts your message. For example, a PDF (Portable Document Format) can be read by almost anyone. Consider using PDFs for your email attachments, especially when you want to keep track of legal or financial communications or send attachments to a large group of people.

Basically, changing Outlook attachments to PDF pages is a necessity and also it will simplify the document archiving.

Reasons why users Can’t Change Outlook Attachments to PDF

There are thousands of users who are going through the same problem which you are dealing with right now which is how to change Outlook email attachments to PDF. Here are a few reasons mentioned below why users can’t change Outlook attachments to PDF:

• There is no built-in feature to save attachments as PDF.
• If the users attachment is broken then it cannot be turned into a PDF.
• There are chances that the large attachments or files may fail at the time of conversion.
• There is no bulk option, the user need to open each file one by one.
• If the user does not have Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc then the user cannot open nor save their files as PDF.

How to Change Outlook Attachments to PDF Manually?

The first approach to convert Outlook email attachments to PDF document pages is the ‘Microsoft Print to PDF’ feature if you are using Windows 10. With it, you can print an email message and its attachment to a PDF file. For that, you need to follow the steps mentioned below.

1. Go to Outlook, and click on the option of Files.
2. Then click on Print.
3. Now click on Microsoft Print to PDF.
4. Then go to print option and then specify how you want the item to be printed.
5. Then tap on Print.

Limitations of the Manual Method

• If an unknown email attachment is there, then you will be asked to select a program to open that particular file.
• You can’t merge the Outlook email and attachment into a single PDF document. For that, you will need a separate PDF merger application.
• This is a time-consuming process as the user has to open each email and attachment.
• It doesn’t provide any built-in feature to convert bulk attachments or emails to PDF at once.
• This does not allow users to schedule automatic saving or conversion of attachments to PDF.
• This method involves a higher chance of missing a few attachments.
• Manual conversion does not capture email metadata like sender, recipient, subject, and time.

Steps to change Outlook email attachment to PDF

1. Download and run the software on your device.
2. Now, select the Outlook emails using the option of Select folders or files.
3. Then, specify the folders from where you want to save the attachments to PDF.
4. Hit on the ‘Convert attachments as PDF’ option from the advanced settings. You can also enable the ‘Black and White mode’ option for creating non-searchable PDFs.
5. Select any file naming option to save the output.
6. Now, browse a destination location for storing the files.
7. Click on the Next button to start the conversion process.
8. In the end, you will get a completed conversion message.

Notable Benefits and Features of Software

• During the conversion, the tool keeps intact the email components, images, hyperlinks, signature, etc.
• This tool offers many filter options to add attachments to PDF documents in a selective manner.
• The separate feature of ‘Convert attachments as PDF’ will help all those individuals who want to store all attachments in PDF format instead of paper.
• The ‘use recovery mode’ feature is beneficial to convert corrupted Outlook data or in the case if you have missing folders.
• This application offers an automated file selection option of ‘convert configured Outlook mailbox data’, which is quite helpful for choosing data without any manual picking of files.
• It offers various file naming conventions to store the output in a systematic manner.
• The tool can download on any edition of Windows and Mac Operating systems.
• It is useful for people belonging to forensic examinations, law specialists, etc.

Last words

Changing Outlook attachments to PDF is necessary for keeping important records, sharing the data, or legal discovery. As explained above, you can select any of the above methods to change your Microsoft Outlook embedded attachments into a PDF portfolio. The user can go with the Manual methods, opening every attachment and then saving them as PDF, but this method is more helpful when the user i having a small number of emails. Though we can’t guarantee that the manual solutions will retain the original format, however, it is good if you few emails for the conversion. But, in the broader sense, the automated method will give the best results and higher efficiency. The automated software is more reliable because it converts various attachments in one go, it is more helpful in case of a large number of emails and attachments.