Learn how to use Apple Shortcuts to add a document like a PDF or a Word file to the Home Screen of your iPhone or iPad for quick and easy access.
Imagine the following situations:
- Your school posted a class schedule or your manager at work sent you the monthly task list as a PDF that you’re expected to consult every day.
- As part of your work as a customer support agent, you must regularly reference the internal rules and other company policies in a specific document.
- You’re working on a project that requires you to seek help from a long Word file.
- You regularly review or revise various books, reports, presentations, or spreadsheets.
Opening your favorite file manager and navigating to the folder containing the required file is too time-consuming. What you can do instead is create a document-specific shortcut on the Home Screen that you can tap once to quickly open the document, and we have the steps to show you how.
Add a document file shortcut to the iPhone’s Home Screen
1) Open the built-in Shortcuts app on your iPhone or iPad and hit the plus button (+) in the top-right corner to create a new shortcut.
2) Type Open File into the search field and choose that action from search results to add it to your build.
3) Touch the light blue File placeholder text and select the file to add to the Home Screen, like a PDF document a PowerPoint presentation, a Word file, an Excel sheet, or something else.
4) Tap the light blue Default App placeholder text and select an appropriate app to open your file. The built-in Files app can open several common file types, so you can try that or choose another one. If you picked a PowerPoint file in step 3, for instance, you may want to view it inside the Keynote app.
5) Optionally, turn on the ‘Show Open In Menu‘ switch to automatically bring up the systemwide share menu when you tap the Home Screen shortcut. This will let you pick an app to open the underlying document on the fly. However, as our goal here is to open a file as quickly as possible, consider keeping it off.
6) Test your shortcut by hitting the rightmost button in the tab area at the bottom. If your document opens in the app you previously selected, the shortcut works correctly. In that case, swipe right to go back and finish the remaining steps. Otherwise, revisit the above steps more carefully.
7) Touch the shortcut name at the top and choose Rename, then give the shortcut the same name as the document it’s set to open.
8) Hit the shortcut name at the top again and choose Add to Home Screen.
9) Hit the icon to use a photo in place of the current symbol, then choose Add.
The shortcut should appear on the Home Screen; you can just tap it to open your document in the chosen app. How cool is that?
Change the underlying file
To replace the current file with another, tap the three-dotted icon in the top-right corner of the shortcut tile, then hit the file name in your build and choose another file.
Delete the shortcut
You can remove the shortcut icon for this automation from your Home Screen like you would any other app icon. And if you no longer have use for this shortcut, delete it in the Shortcuts app by touching and holding its tile and choosing Delete from the menu.
Also, check out: 15 ways to quickly run a shortcut on iPhone, iPad, and Mac