Question :
I am witing an eMail to a service desk to get help on a product and I want to show them which part is broken in a drawing. I found an online document (a downloadable PDF) in which I can easily draw a circle arround the defective part. Do I just need to download the PDF onto my Mac, then draw the circle on it in Photoshop (or something) and then attach it to the eMail I am writing…

Or is there a faster way to do this ?


Answer :
The option you are describing is okay, but it can be done easier. So without having to save the PDF to your Mac first. To do so. do this :

– open Mail.app on your Mac and write the eMail
– then open Safari.app on your Mac and find the webpage with the online PDF that you would like to include in your eMail
– then in Safari.app, right/option-click on the document in your browser window and choose “Open with Preview” from the pop-up list and the PDF web page will be opened in Preview.app
– then, in Preview.app, click on the Markup-button (the icon of a circle with a tip of a pencil in it, in the menu bar of the picture preview window) to see the editing tools
– then, in Preview.app, draw the circle in the color you need onto the PDF
– when done, click on the Share-button (the icon of a square with an upward pointing arrow in it, in the menu bar of the [picture preview window)
– from the pull-down menu that appears, choose “Mail”
– now a new (nearly empty) eMail will open in Mail.app with just the (edited) PDF in it
– now click&hold on the PDF file and drag&drop it from the nearly-empty eMail into the eMail that you want to send out
– then, with the edited PDF attached, send out the eMail

That’s it !
enjoy 😉

Note : if you want to double check that it is actually the edited version that you are about to send out, just click on the PDF file in the ready-to-send eMail and you will see that the edited version of the PDF is opened in Preview.app