The Entourage User's WebLog

Note that there is already an action to "Mail PDF". This will create a PDF of your document and try to send it using Apple's Mail.App. However, it is really easy to make a menu item that will use Entourage instead. Just select the last item in this menu ("Edit Menu...") to open this dialog:

Now, click the little '+' button in the bottom left hand corner and navigate to your Microsoft Office folder (usually in /Applications) and select the Microsoft Entourage application. This will be added to the menu.

Now, wnhenever you want to mail aPDF of a document, just open the print dialog in the normal way, and select 'Microsft Entourage' from the PDF menu in the print dialog. If a draft message window is frontmost in Entourage already, the PDF will be attached to that message. If there isn't, then a new draft message window will be opened and the PDF attached to that. It's that easy; two clicks - choose 'Print' in whatever application holds your original document, and choose 'Microsoft Entourage' from the PDF menu in the print dialog.

If that's all you needed, you can stop reading now, but if you want the explanation & geek stuff read on...

The entries for this menu are stored in two places - "/Library/PDF Services" (for options available to all users of your mac) and "~/Library/PDF Services" for the local user (i.e. you!). Normally, these entries are Automator Workflows or Applescript droplets (applications that can receive files dropped onto them). However, we can take advantage of Entourage's built in behaviour here. Any file dropped onto the Entourage application will be attached to a mail message in exactly the way I have describe earlier - an existing draft message window if one is open in front or a new draft window if not. So, by adding 'Microsoft Entourage' to the menu in the way I described (it is added to the local PDF Services folder) an alias to Entourage is added to the local PDF Services menu. Dropping a file on this alias works exactly the same way as dropping a file on the application itself. That's how it works.

Now, to customise things, you can open '~/Library/PDF Services' and change the name of the alias from "Microsoft Entouragfe" to "Mail PDF with Entourage" or anything else you like. Alternatively, if you wanted to do anything more complex with the PDF (like, use a specific account, or include some bod text etc) you could create an AppleScript Droplet that would acheive those functions and add it to this folder. The function will then appear in the PDF menu any time you invoke the print function. Write me a comment if you have any particular requirements in mind, and I may create another article on how to write the scripts necessary...