Attach PDF (or any document) to email.

You can attach a photo or video to an email when sending a new message, and also when replying to a message. At least I can. I'm quite surprised that you can't.

Yes, but you can't attach a pdf or word doc. I use my ipad 2 and a wireless keyboard when I travel. I can generate, read and edit Powerpoint, Word and Excel files and read and save pdfs. But if an email string with important information comes in, I can't reply-to-all with a pdf or excel spreadsheet. All I can do is send a reply promising the files under seperate cover, which breaks the string.

As a businessman, I need to keep strings intact for future reference and for my files in our Exchange Server.

It's ridiculous to require me to carry a laptop adn charger just so I can reply to all.

Lawrence Finch wrote:

You can attach a photo or video to an email when sending a new message, and also when replying to a message. At least I can. I'm quite surprised that you can't.

It's an original iPad on iOS 5, which may explain why. Either that, or the button is so well hidden that I haven't managed to find it...

I don't remember if iOS 5 had it. But start a new message or reply, hold your finger in the text area to bring up the magnifier, and you should see a choice of Select All, Select, or Paste. I also see an arrow at the right end of the bar. Tapping the arrow reveals more choices, including insert an image or video.

And, in fact, if Apple were to add the option to save files to the camera roll folder, the problem would be solved.

Lawrence Finch wrote:

I don't remember if iOS 5 had it. But start a new message or reply, hold your finger in the text area to bring up the magnifier, and you should see a choice of Select All, Select, or Paste. I also see an arrow at the right end of the bar. Tapping the arrow reveals more choices, including insert an image or video.

Just tried it, and no joy. All I get when tapping the arrow is "Quote Level"...

I assume apple monitor this forum. They should take on board the comments and do something about it.

I am not a business user but would like the facility to add a PDF to an email that has multiple addresses.

Get it sorted on next IOS, and along with this issue a methods to create a group within email..

Poor show apple.

frankthesurf wrote:

I assume apple monitor this forum.

You assumed wrong. They do not. Post your feedback to Apple here:

www.apple.com/feedback

I've had this problem also and I agree that it is a pain. The "solution" I've found is to 'cut' the pdf file from the would-be new email and paste it onto a reply

@TGR [Semi solved!!]

This is much better than copying the reply text as suggested in earlier posts. (Maybe cutting an attachment out of an email wasn't an option back then.)

1. Hit reply on the note in question. (All to:, cc:, subject filled in!)

2. Pop over to iBooks (or whatever).

3. Send document in email...

4. Cut it out of the new draft. And close/kill this draft.

5. Go back to mail and paste into the original reply.

6. Go to step 2 as needed.

Another option would be to go to iBooks and pump all the needed documents into draft emails. Then go to mail and sit in the drafts folder opening drafts, cutting, and pasting into a draft reply.

bgrupczy wrote:

@TGR [Semi solved!!]

This is much better than copying the reply text as suggested in earlier posts. (Maybe cutting an attachment out of an email wasn't an option back then.)

1. Hit reply on the note in question. (All to:, cc:, subject filled in!)

2. Pop over to iBooks (or whatever).

3. Send document in email...

4. Cut it out of the new draft. And close/kill this draft.

5. Go back to mail and paste into the original reply.

6. Go to step 2 as needed.

Another option would be to go to iBooks and pump all the needed documents into draft emails. Then go to mail and sit in the drafts folder opening drafts, cutting, and pasting into a draft reply.

This has worked for me, except that I found that if I follow your step 4 exactly as above, although the pdf file appears to be inserted into the new reply, it doesn't get sent with it. It worked ok if I saved the draft when I closed it, then went into the Mail app and opened the draft and cut the pdf from there.

I also found that copying the pdf from the email instead of cutting appears to insert the pdf, but it doesn't get sent with the reply.

It sounds to me like one should save the reply as a draft immediately before sending, then go into Drafts and verify that the email has a paper clip beside before sending. These methods sound so dodgy that it wouldn't surprise me if they work differently from iOS version to iOS version, so I wouldn't expect this to work after an update without testing. I'm on iOS 8.3.

I can understand that the sandboxing makes it hard for the Mail app to get at the pdfs. I think this could be resolved by Apple adding a Copy option to iBooks and also to the pdf viewer in the Mail app. That would save us doing the intermediate step of creating a draft we don't need.

With all this messing around with drafts, it might be worth drawing people's attention to the shortcut for getting to the drafts, in case anyone doesn't already know it. If you hold your finger down on the New Message button, a list of drafts will pop up. Much faster than going back to the folder list to get into the Drafts folder.

It's also worth pointing out that TGR's method is better than pasting the reply text into the iBooks draft because it retains the messageID in the headers. Some mail clients and list servers use that for distinguishing replies from new emails, and displaying the messages in a threaded view accordingly. Creating a new message can mess that up.

You can attach a document to iOS mail using iCloud Drive. You'll need to set up iCloud Drive first, but once that's done and you have uploaded your document to your iCloud Drive, the process is the same as attaching a photo/video. As before, after long press in your email the options pop up appears and there's an option to "Add Attachment" at the end. Select that option, then just navigate through iCloud Drive to find and select your desired document. It's very easy.

That is a good workaround if you trust Apple with your data. After 25 years of working with Apple, I prefer to not give them too much control of my work product. In other words, icloud isn't reliable.

4 years later on this thread to accomplish a routine task and we're stuck with a workaround?? I am a new Apple user with an iPad Pro, which I was promised would function like an actual machine and not a toy...

I am trying to reply to a Gmail email with a .pdf attachment from either Google Drive or Dropbox. First, when I search for attachment files from the Inbox App, all I have access to are pictures on my device - Not acceptable! Then, when I try from Gmail.com, I finally find the files in Dropbox and they're Grey! It won't let me attach them!

Is this for real? Pro means professional, but I guess I bought a $1,200 toy after all?...