I wanted to save a PowerPoint presentation I had prepared as a PDF and transfer that PDF to my iPad. If I could make that happen, I could travel for a presentation without having to drag my computer along.
I emailed it to myself and opened it with my Xfinity email app. There was no way to do anything with it there except print. The problem was with Xfinity. Downloading from Gmail seems to present similar problems.
I found two ways that worked.
- I put it on Dropbox and could open the PDF file with my iPad from there. This was super easy, but if you don’t have a Dropbox account all is not lost.
- I mailed it to my Mac Mail account. There were several options for saving it from the Mac Mail app.
Mac Mail Tips
In Mac Mail I could tap and hold the icon for the PDF file and a menu opened up with several options. The options you see here are reflections of what I have installed on my iPad. You would have at least iBooks in your options. Note that the document was attached in the body of the email.
I chose to open the file in iBooks. To find it in iBooks, I had to click the collections button so I could choose between books and PDF files.
Now I can give a presentation with my iPad in hand and leave the computer at home. That’s a relief.