Can I Pin a Specific PDF to my Start Menu?

Question

I'm using windows 10, and I wondered if there was some way to pin an actual pdf file to the start menu. I know I can pin the pdf reader, but to me the point of the start menu is ease of access, and if I have to point and click to open frequently used pdf files than I feel a little disappointed.

When I try to right click the pdf file, there is no 'pin to start' option from the menu, so I guess that's not a good sign. However, it's 2017, people can split the atom, surely there is a way to pin a specific pdf file to the start menu.

Solution

You can right-click any PDF file that you choose and select Send to > Desktop (create shortcut). You may also prefer to rename your shortcut to something more unique, or at the very least, remove the visible - Shortcut suffix.

After that, you can copy that shortcut to one of the following locations:

Only your Start Menu - %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

All users Start Menu - %ProgramData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

Taking it a step further, you can potentially right-click that shortcut within the alphabetical All Apps list and select Pin to Start.

Comments

[John Dvorak]

Have you tried dragging it to the start menu?

[Arash Howaida]

yea, it displays a red cross icon, and upon finishing drag and drop it doesn't work.

[John Dvorak]

I'm surprised. I guess you could write a tiny powershell script to open the PDF, but it seems like a workaround.

[Ravindra Bawane]

If you can pin word documents to your Start Menu, then you can pin PDF files to your Start Menu. Also, unless you CONVERTED the PDF, this saves no clicks, and in fact, makes the process more difficult.