How To Save A Google Doc As A PDF

When you’ve created a document in Google Docs, sometimes you need to save it as a PDF for a certain reason. Maybe it is a legal contract that you do not want to be changed and you need to send it to someone for a signature. Maybe the document is meant to be printed out, and thus you need it to retain its formatting.

Whatever your reason, it can be useful to know how to save a Google Doc as a PDF. That is what this article will show you.

How To Save A Google Doc As A PDF

There are two ways to save a Google Doc as a PDF:

  1. Save As PDF to a location on your computer or the cloud
  2. Send as a PDF email attachment

Let’s look at how to do both.

Save As PDF

The most common way to save a Google Doc as a PDF is to use Google Docs’s native ability.

To do this, first create and write your document.

Create Your Google Doc

Next, click File in the top left to show the dropdown:

File Dropdown

Then, move your mouse cursor over Download to show that submenu option:

Save as PDF option

Once you click that option, the file will save as a PDF to your computer or wherever you designate:

File Downloaded As PDF

Email This File as PDF

Now that you know how to save a Google Doc as a PDF on your computer, let’s see how to simply email a Google Doc as a PDF to someone (or yourself!)

Let’s take the same document I created above:

Document Titled “How To Save A Google Doc As A PDF”

Then, select the File dropdown as before:

File Dropdown in Google Docs

This time, instead of selecting Download you should select Email and Email this file:

Email this file

Then enter an email to whom to send it and select if the content should be included in the email vs attached as a PDF. I chose attached, so I left the checkbox unchecked:

Attaching PDF via email

Now I go to my email and voila, there it is:

PDF attached to email

Need Editing?

Now that you know how to save a Google Doc as a PDF, you might need editing of that Google Doc before it is saved and sent as a PDF.

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