How To: Use your iPhone to store your documents for later reading! - Very Useful

dharrison9 · Jul 6, 2007

I'm a writer and I wanted to be able to read my current progress on my phone while I'm on the go. I have a Gmail account, so I figured that I would email myself the PDF of the current work and then read it from my iPhone's inbox when I need to (when I don't have WiFi or EDGE, such as a plane). Unfortunately, it seemed that my iPhone wasn't actually downloading the messages permanently from my Gmail inbox, and merely retained a temporary copy. I needed a permanent copy for traveling.

So I went to Yahoo! and set up an account. I activated it on my iPhone and then sent myself another copy of the current work to the Yahoo! account. I was immediately 'pushed' the email, and the attachment was saved to my iPhone. I turned off my iPhone and restarted it into Airplane Mode and still the document was still there. My Yahoo! Push Mail account just became my iPhone Document Reader. It will work with any document the iPhone can read (DOC, PDF, etc.).

There you have it, here's the short version.

To download documents to your iPhone for later use (later being when you don't have a connection to the Web):

1. Start a free Yahoo! Email Account.
2. Set it up on your iPhone (Settings, Mail, Add Account).
3. Email the Yahoo! Address the file you want to save.
4. The Yahoo! account will 'push' the attachment to you and save it for later viewing.
5. The iPhone's Mail application just became a document viewer!

Hope this was helpful as it certainly solved one of my major problems.

Sack · Jul 6, 2007

One question: is there any way to read it outside the mail application? I just went through the steps you suggested, then sent myself a test PDF. It works great, but the text in the PDF is so small (12 point) that I cannot really make out the letters without concentrating pretty intensely. Since the mail application wont display in widescreen/landscape mode, there seems to be no good way to enlarge the text without pinching and scrolling (which gets pretty cumbersome, but I suppose is better than having no solution at all).

Furgster · Jul 6, 2007

cant you just put the PDF on a web server and then look at it using safari. cant you switch to landscape when you do that

nbs2 · Jul 6, 2007

Furgster said:
cant you just put the PDF on a web server and then look at it using safari. cant you switch to landscape when you do that

That certainly is helpful in most instances, but times when you don't have access to the internet is what this solution is trying to work around.

G4R2 · Jul 6, 2007

There is actually an incredibly easy and high quality way to save and view PDFs and probably many other kinds of files on your iPhone.

The application that you need to use is neither Mail nor Safari.

It is, instead, the Photo application on your iPhone. You will be able to scroll, zoom, and organize the files however you like. They will be stored automatically in a folder in iPhoto with virtually no effort.

The OS X function that does this is the Print function found in most applications.

Here are the instructions to do this:

1. Open the PDF file you want to view on your iPhone in Preview in OS X.

2. Select Print. In the dialog that appears select the PDF button on the bottom left hand side.

3. Now scroll down the pop up list and select Save PDF to iPhoto.

4. iPhoto will now launch and you will be prompted for an album name to store the new files. Type in the name of the document.

5. Sync your iPhone. You'll have to go to the Photo page in iTunes to make sure the folder is selected and that the images sync.

6. On your iPhone click photos and you'll see the PDF has been broken down by pages and is viewable, scrollable, and zoomable like any other photo.

Sack · Jul 6, 2007

GR42, that's a great tip. I suppose I'll do that when I can, and use the Yahoo! Mail as a workaround for when I can't do it your way.

Like many people, I have Macs at home and a PC at work. Unfortunately, I can't sync with me Win2K PC at work, so I can't do it the ideal way all the time

plumbingandtech · Jul 6, 2007

dharrison9 said:
I'm a writer and I wanted to be able to read my current progress on my phone while I'm on the go. I have a Gmail account, so I figured that I would email myself the PDF of the current work and then read it from my iPhone's inbox when I need to (when I don't have WiFi or EDGE, such as a plane). Unfortunately, it seemed that my iPhone wasn't actually downloading the messages permanently from my Gmail inbox, and merely retained a temporary copy. I needed a permanent copy for traveling.

So I went to Yahoo! and set up an account. I activated it on my iPhone and then sent myself another copy of the current work to the Yahoo! account. I was immediately 'pushed' the email, and the attachment was saved to my iPhone. I turned off my iPhone and restarted it into Airplane Mode and still the document was still there. My Yahoo! Push Mail account just became my iPhone Document Reader. It will work with any document the iPhone can read (DOC, PDF, etc.).

There you have it, here's the short version.

To download documents to your iPhone for later use (later being when you don't have a connection to the Web):

1. Start a free Yahoo! Email Account.
2. Set it up on your iPhone (Settings, Mail, Add Account).
3. Email the Yahoo! Address the file you want to save.
4. The Yahoo! account will 'push' the attachment to you and save it for later viewing.
5. The iPhone's Mail application just became a document viewer!

Hope this was helpful as it certainly solved one of my major problems.

Thank you so much!

plumbingandtech · Jul 6, 2007

G4R2 said:
There is actually an incredibly easy and high quality way to save and view PDFs and probably many other kinds of files on your iPhone.

The application that you need to use is neither Mail nor Safari.

It is, instead, the Photo application on your iPhone. You will be able to scroll, zoom, and organize the files however you like. They will be stored automatically in a folder in iPhoto with virtually no effort.

The OS X function that does this is the Print function found in most applications.

Here are the instructions to do this:

1. Open the PDF file you want to view on your iPhone in Preview in OS X.

2. Select Print. In the dialog that appears select the PDF button on the bottom left hand side.

3. Now scroll down the pop up list and select Save PDF to iPhoto.

4. iPhoto will now launch and you will be prompted for an album name to store the new files. Type in the name of the document.

5. Sync your iPhone. You'll have to go to the Photo page in iTunes to make sure the folder is selected and that the images sync.

6. On your iPhone click photos and you'll see the PDF has been broken down by pages and is viewable, scrollable, and zoomable like any other photo.

Hi. I tried this but since my pdfs were just text (code) they were really blurry when I opened them up in iphoto.

might be me and user error though.

the yahoo worked right and looks fantastic.

let's hope they get their damn file system and pdf reader (i would love to search) out SOON!

digimidi · Jul 6, 2007

G4R2 said:
3. Now scroll down the pop up list and select Save PDF to iPhoto.

That option is greyed out on the pdf files I have tried to save. Is there any thing you need to do to the pdf to get this to work?

Gil

plumbingandtech · Jul 6, 2007

New Tip:

File -> Print -> Pdf Button -> Mail PDF

saves a step.

This looks great. I am looking at PDFs I made in omnigraffle (big flow charts)

This is going to save some trees around here

awalsh2025 · Jul 14, 2009

Google Docs

If you use Google Docs, there's an app called MiGhtyDocs that I've found very useful.

-aggie- · Jul 14, 2009

G4R2 said:
There is actually an incredibly easy and high quality way to save and view PDFs and probably many other kinds of files on your iPhone.

The application that you need to use is neither Mail nor Safari.

It is, instead, the Photo application on your iPhone. You will be able to scroll, zoom, and organize the files however you like. They will be stored automatically in a folder in iPhoto with virtually no effort.

The OS X function that does this is the Print function found in most applications.

Here are the instructions to do this:

1. Open the PDF file you want to view on your iPhone in Preview in OS X.

2. Select Print. In the dialog that appears select the PDF button on the bottom left hand side.

3. Now scroll down the pop up list and select Save PDF to iPhoto.

4. iPhoto will now launch and you will be prompted for an album name to store the new files. Type in the name of the document.

5. Sync your iPhone. You'll have to go to the Photo page in iTunes to make sure the folder is selected and that the images sync.

6. On your iPhone click photos and you'll see the PDF has been broken down by pages and is viewable, scrollable, and zoomable like any other photo.

Any way to do this in Windows (he asks with hesitation, fearing the mac fanboys...

)?

G4R2 · Jul 14, 2009

iphone.aggie said:
Any way to do this in Windows (he asks with hesitation, fearing the mac fanboys... )?

Err, It's no longer an issue.

This thread is like TWO YEARS OLD prior to the availability of 3rd party apps on the iPhone and the ability to use programs such as Air Sharing.

Etnies419 · Jul 14, 2009

I just use Quickoffice and MobileMe. I put the file on my iDisk, then save it to my phone's local files in Quickoffice. That way I can read it and edit it if I need to, even without a connection. Of course, this method is not free.

-aggie- · Jul 14, 2009

G4R2 said:
Err, It's no longer an issue.

This thread is like TWO YEARS OLD prior to the availability of 3rd party apps on the iPhone and the ability to use programs such as Air Sharing.

Uh, yes it still is an issue. You assume I would want to pay for something. Sorry, but I don't, so would've liked to have something free I could use. Anyway, I guess there's nothing. My son has the Mac, and I have the PC. I'm planning on becoming a developer and getting a mini-Mac, so I guess I'll have to wait for that.

lankadawson · Jan 28, 2010

Dropbox and PDFs

I use dropbox online storage, you get 2 gb free
Drop my PDFs into it
Use the free iphone dropbox app to open a pdf
You can then read it
You can also press the star icon and keep a copy of the pDF on your phone

extralarge · Apr 7, 2010

Does iTunes support iPhone sync now or maybe iPhone 4.0?

pastorjim · Oct 8, 2010

Evernote for transporting files

lankadawson said:
I use dropbox online storage, you get 2 gb free
Drop my PDFs into it
Use the free iphone dropbox app to open a pdf
You can then read it
You can also press the star icon and keep a copy of the pDF on your phone

A new option might be Evernote. It can read and search photos with text in them! Synch programs for Mac and PC, too.

There are free and Premium versions.

pastorjim · Jun 27, 2012

Storing PDF and Word files in iOS

It is now possible to save your email attachments to iBooks by opening them while the email message is on the device and using the square action-box-with-arrow to save it to iBooks (or whatever other options appear there).

David Brownz · Jun 30, 2012

Store mail in Iphones's mail box

Hi,
You have shared very important thing with us, really it will be beneficial for the people those don't have WiFi all time. But i am quite confused why Iphone's mail application does not work properly with Gmail's Account as with Yahoo's Account. If anybody have some knowledge about it please clear it to me.

Thanks
David

How To: Use your iPhone to store your documents for later reading! - Very Useful

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