At the start of last month, Facebook-owned messaging service WhatsApp became the world leader in messaging with the announcement that the service had reached 1 billion users.

“WhatsApp began as a simple idea: ensuring that anyone could stay in touch with family and friends anywhere on the planet, without costs or gimmicks standing in the way,” and now it has added a new feature – the ability to send documents to your WhatsApp contacts.

At this stage, the document sharing feature only supports PDF documents, but we will hopefully see other file types supported at a later date. The new document sharing feature is displayed with other sharing options including contacts, location, gallery and audio.

To make space for the Documents icon in the pop-up, WhatsApp has combined the Photo and Video icons into a new Camera icon.

Tip: If you want to share a photo or a video on WhatsApp, tap the Camera icon and select the relevant option from the pop-up: Take picture or Record video.

The new feature is rolling out to both iOS and Android users, but Windows Phone users will have to wait.

How to send PDFs on WhatsApp for iOS and Android

• Launch WhatsApp on your iOS or Android device and either tap an ongoing conversation in the Chats tab or start a new conversation by tapping the Contacts tab.
• To send a PDF document on an Android device, tap the paperclip icon in the top right-hand corner. Tap the new Document icon in the pop-up window, which is the first icon in the list. To send a PDF document on an iOS device, tap the arrow icon in the chat. Tap the new Share Document option from the menu.  

Tip: If you do not see the new Document icon, then you can head over to the Play Store and check if there is an update for the Android version of WhatsApp. Alternatively head over to the App Store to check for an updated version of WhatsApp for iOS.

• Tap the Document icon to select the PDF that you want to send to your contact.

Tip: If your contact is on an out-dated version of WhatsApp, a pop-up will notify you of this fact and you will not be able to send your PDF until they have the latest version of WhatsApp on their device.  

• WhatsApp will bring up a list of documents stored on your phone, as well as from various cloud storage services, including iCloud Drive, Google Drive, Dropbox and more. For now, WhatsApp only supports PDF documents so these are the only ones you will see in the list of options.
• Tap the PDF that you want to send, and tap the Send button that appears in the pop-up window.
• When the document has been shared with your contact, it will display a preview of the PDF, together with the number of pages in the document, as well as the file size and type.
• As WhatsApp is invested in end-to-end encryption on its network, any documents that you share with your contacts on the messaging service will be protected.

Image credit: arivera via Pixabay