M365 Changelog: (Updated) PDF Tools app retirement

MC584834 – Updated July 18, 2023: Microsoft has updated the timing of this change below. Thank you for your patience.

Microsoft will be retiring the PDF Tools app from Teams, Office and Outlook store by mid-July, 2023.

Please note that this doesn’t take away the ability to open PDFs on Teams, Outlook and other existing apps or convert to PDFs on the Word, Excel or PowerPoint apps. No use case outside of the app’s usage will be impacted by this change.

RW16TLG?ver=4153
View image in new tab

When this will happen:

Late July, 2023

How this will affect your organization:

Users or Administrators will no longer be able to use this app, when this change is implemented.

Instead, Microsoft recommends the utilization of following apps and features, which is where it will continue to invest our development resources:

  1. If you are on a web or desktop endpoint, to convert a Word, Excel or PowerPoint file to PDF, open the file in the respective Word, Excel or PowerPoint app. Click on File -> Export -> Create PDF. Alternatively, you can go to File -> Print -> Select “Microsoft Print to PDF”.
    • If you have an Adobe license, you can directly click on File -> Save as Adobe PDF.
  2. If you have access to Office.com, you can right click on any file without opening it and select “Convert to PDF” to directly convert the file to PDF.
  3. If you are on a mobile endpoint, use the Microsoft 365 mobile app on Android or iOS.
    • On Android, Go to “Apps” tab -> Select “PDF Tools” -> “Document to PDF”.
    • On iOS, Go to “Apps” tab -> Select “Document to PDF”.
    • This app has a host of other PDF related features like Scan to PDF, Pictures to PDF, PDF to Word etc. that you can use for FREE.
  4. If you are familiar with any other existing mechanisms to convert your documents to PDF, please continue using them. Those won’t be impacted by this change.

What you can do to prepare:

You may consider updating your training and documentation as appropriate.