Saving email as PDF

Portable Document Format or PDF as most of us know it today was created by Adobe. At the beginning of its existence, it was a proprietary format used only by Adobe software. More than a decade later it was changed to an open format. All of us know PDF and its switch to an open standard made it even more popular.

Maybe you want to preserve email formatting, maybe you just need a file that is compatible with any device and can be viewed without any special apps. The PDF file can be opened with reader software but if you don’t have one, a simple web browser will do the trick. PDF should tick all those boxes.
No matter what you want to use it for, PDF files are now standard for documents, texts, and image presentation.

If you want to save your emails in PDF format, continue reading to find out more.

How to save email as PDF?

First, you need to invoke the print dialog.

On Windows, you can use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+P - be it in Outlook, eM Client, or any other app, this shortcut should be standard for the print command.

Here’s how to save your email (or any other file) as a PDF in more detailed steps:

How to save Outlook email as PDF


  • Start with opening a message you want to save.
  • Click on File, then click on Print
  • Then select the printer from the “Printer” dropdown menu, it should be the “Microsoft Print to PDF” printer.
  • Select “Print” and specify the target directory and file name
  • Confirm the dialog by clicking on “Save"

How to save eM Client email as PDF

First, we would like to mention that there are multiple methods of getting into the “Print” dialog in eM Client. We will leave it up to you to decide which one will suit your needs the best.

Method 1 - Save as PDF

Swiftly save your emails as PDF using right-click > Save as and as a file type select - PDF and save the file to your device.

Method 2 - Print

You can get to the print dialog you can use:

  • In the message list, right-click on the message
  • From the context menu select “Print

Or simply select the message and use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+P

Once in the “Print” preview window you sould see various settings but these are mostly for printing. What we are interested in is the “Save as PDF” button, click on it, name your file and save it.

Now that you have email message exported in PDF format, you can share it as attachment or you can use cloud attachments if you linked a cloud storage service with eM Client.

Additional export options

If you are looking for a way to export emails in .eml format, settings, or other eM Client contents like .ics calendar files and .vcf contact files, you can find these options in Menu > File > Export.
Alternatively, it’s possible to just drag the message, event, note, or attachment to the desktop or to a specific folder and it will be saved in its respective format.