Look, I’m not gonna lie to ya’: I’ve got a bit of a love-hate relationship with PDFs. And, more often than not, it veers mostly toward the “hate” side of that spectrum.
Don’t get me wrong: PDFs are certainly useful. When you need to share something with specific formatting and know it’ll look exactly the same to anyone who sees it, there’s no better way to get the job done.
But, man, is it ever a headache-inducing moment when you see such a file show up in your inbox—or, worse yet, realize you’ve gotta find a way to share one with some of your fellow file-loathing flamingos.
Today’s tool transforms that typically painful process and turns the PDF into a sensible-seeming, dare I say even pleasant, part of your daily doings. And it couldn’t be much easier to use.
This tip originally appeared in the free Cool Tools newsletter from The Intelligence. Get the next issue in your inbox and get ready to discover all sorts of awesome tech treasures!
Your PDF painkiller
The next time you’ve got a PDF you need to share with someone, remember a website called PDF to Link.
➜ PDF to Link does exactly what you’d expect, from its name: It takes any PDF you feed it (mmm, documents . . .) and turns it into a temporary link that anyone you send it to can see—almost like Snapchat for PDFs, only with way less saucy material.
And you don’t even have to sign into anything or create any kind of account to use it.
⌚ In fact, it’ll take you all of seven seconds to make happen . . .
✅ Just pull up PDF to Link in any browser, on any device you’re using—then:
- Click or tap the Select File button—or just drag and drop a PDF directly from your device onto the page.
- Click or tap the Generate Shareable Link button.
Aaaaand—well, that’s pretty much it: PDF to Link will give you a custom web link that you can send to anyone for a simple-as-can-be, no-awkward-attachment or clunky-downloading-requiring way to let ’em view your PDF right in their web browser. For all practical purposes, it’ll be as if the PDF were a regular ol’ website instead of a sigh-inducing file.
By default, all of PDF to Link’s links remain available for two days from the moment you make ’em. So my link—the one I created as an example while writing this article—stopped working on Thursday (8/14) at 8:20 a.m. PT.
That means you don’t have to worry about whatever you’re sending remaining online forever. And since only someone with the exact URL can find or see the file while it is actively available, there’s little real risk of it being seen by the wrong person, either—though, of course, you’ll want to use your own best judgment. (I probably wouldn’t share anything super-sensitive, like banking info or deep company secrets, with any sort of system like this!)
- PDF to Link works entirely on the web—nothing to install or download.
- It’s free for up to three shares every two days, with PDFs up to 3MB in size. (If you need to quickly compress a file to make it small enough, here’s your answer.) The service also offers paid plans starting at $10 a month that lift those restrictions and unlock other extra options, but they absolutely aren’t needed for basic occasional sharing.
- PDF to Link doesn’t require any personal info or sign-ins, and its privacy policy doesn’t include anything especially eyebrow-raising.
Treat yourself to all sorts of efficiency-enhancing goodies like this with my free Cool Tools newsletter—starting with an instant introduction to an incredible audio app that’ll tune up your days in delightful ways.
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