---
title: "Save documents as PDFs on Android"
canonical_url: "https://www.nutrient.io/guides/android/save-a-document/save-as/"
md_url: "https://www.nutrient.io/guides/android/save-a-document/save-as.md"
last_updated: "2026-06-18T07:25:36.444Z"
description: "Learn how to use the Save As feature to save modified documents as PDFs on Android devices with ease."
---

# How to save documents as PDFs on Android

It’s not uncommon for customers to want a setup where a document is read-only but users can still edit it and then use the Save As functionality to save the modified document to a new location. Nutrient supports saving documents with the Save As functionality.

To use the Save As functionality:

- Add a custom Save As button to the [toolbar](https://www.nutrient.io/guides/android/customizing-the-interface/customizing-menus.md).

- On button click, start a file picker with the `Intent.ACTION_CREATE_DOCUMENT` action. Either implement it yourself following general [Android guidelines](https://developer.android.com/training/data-storage/shared/documents-files#create-file), or use our internal file picker, which is accessible via the `thumbnailGrid` (which can be accessed from either the `PdfActivity` class or the `PdfUIFragment` class). Our internal picker must be used with RxJava.

When the new file name is received, call one of the save functions from the `PdfDocument` class with it. We support synchronous ([`save`](https://www.nutrient.io/api/android/nutrient/com.pspdfkit.document/-pdf-document/save.html)) and asynchronous ([`saveAsync`](https://www.nutrient.io/api/android/nutrient/com.pspdfkit.document/-pdf-document/save-async.html)) saving. Both methods are available either only with the file path, or with specific saving options:

```java

getPSPDFKitViews().getThumbnailGridView().getFilePicker().getDestinationUri(Intent.ACTION_CREATE_DOCUMENT).subscribe(
        // `onSuccess` (a file was selected).
        (uri) -> {
            // Call one of our saving methods here.
            document.save(uri.getPath());
        },
        // `onError` (something happened).
        (throwable) -> {

        },
        // `onComplete` (== filepicker operation was canceled).
        () -> {

        }
    );

```
---

## Related pages

- [Auto saving PDF files on Android](/guides/android/features/document-checkpointing.md)
- [Saving a PDF file on Android](/guides/android/save-a-document.md)
- [Incremental PDF saving on Android](/guides/android/faq/growing-pdf-file-size.md)
- [Save PDFs to local storage on Android](/guides/android/save-a-document/to-local-storage.md)
- [Save PDFs to a custom data provider on Android](/guides/android/save-a-document/to-custom-data-provider.md)
- [Save PDFs to a remote server on Android](/guides/android/save-a-document/to-remote-server.md)
- [Save PDFs to Document Engine on Android](/guides/android/save-a-document/to-document-engine.md)