Combining .msg files into a PDF from file explorer

Question

I have Adobe Acrobat X Standard installed and from within outlook, I can select multiple messages and convert them into a PDF with attachements embedded. A great utility! But, I have a large number of .msg files that have been moved out of outlook and are spread out across several directories. I need to turn all of the .msg files within a directory into a single PDF with attachments being embedded.

The problem is that when I attempt to do this from file explorer, the file produced does not produce a PDF portfolio and does not include the attachments. The produced PDF properties say that the file was produced with the Adobo Distiller as opposed to the files being produced from within outlook being produced from "Acrobat PDF Maker for Microsoft Outlook".

Is there a way to produce the same results (as those from within Outlook) while being in the file explorer? I do not want to individually move files in and out of Outlook to produce the PDFs.

Answer 1

No, what you want is not possible.

The family of 'Acrobat PDF Maker for Microsoft $application' is designed to create PDFs directly from their native application formats via GDI/EMF (the internal graphics API/fileformat that Microsoft Windows use(d) exclusively for print spool files and other purposes). As such that specific Acrobat PDF Maker is enabled to also handle mail attachments.

If you try to produce PDFs via the file explorer, you'll be lucky if you get a PDF at all. And if it works, it will have undergone an intermediate transformation to PostScript (that's where the Acrobat Distiller fits to the file input format and can consume it to create PDF output). It doesn't matter then that the file format may have touched GDI/EMF on its transformation path (likely, from file explorer the formats were going "native *.msg-> GDI/EMF -> PostScript -> PDF").

Answer 2

An actual solution, for those who want a workaround. This will preserve messages AND attachments.

1. Search all the folders you need converted for *.msg files.

2. Open outlook and create a "temporary" folder.

3. Drag all .msg files from the search results to the temporary folder.

4. Select all the newly copied emails in the temporary folder and rt+click and "convert to pdf"

Note

It may be necessary, to avoid inbox limits etc, to only do this 50-100 emails at a time. In that case, you can use the "Append" option in the right click menu to add these new emails to the same PDF.

Steps performed were on Acrobat X Pro, YMMV with other versions