![]() PDFs are commonly passed around corporate communications and legal teams anyway, so it’s no wonder they often make their way onto intranets and corporate websites. legal reasons), but this doesn’t mean PDF is the only format in which the content should exist. ![]() There are legitimate cases when policies must exist in PDF format on a company website or intranet (e.g. For anything that I link to on the intranet, I will convert it to a PDF” “Normally we get a Word document or an Excel spreadsheet. In another example, when we asked a content manager what instigates changes to the intranet, she said, They could also refuse to acknowledge how bad PDF is for usability, assuming it’s good enough the way it is. They may feel that moving the content from a PDF to a webpage will relinquish some of that control or, maybe, they don’t think they can post the content effectively in a webpage. In some cases, PDFs are preferred because they give less-savvy content creators a sense of ownership, control, and protection over the message and layout. If you’re using a component-based design, design system, or a set of predetermined templates, you don’t have to spend much time figuring out how the web page will look and the link will stay intact after the change is made. In contrast, with a web page, you simply open the CMS, find the page, make the change using a WYSIWYG editor, save it, and publish it. To make a simple change, you have to find the original document, make the change, ensure it’s accessible, save it as a new PDF, repost it to the web, and ensure that any existing links point to the new version. In reality, it takes more time to manage updates and handle versioning control with PDFs than with webpages. We have tried to enforce standards, but people always say they need it quickly and expect us to post the PDF.” They want it to be pretty, but we want it to be useful. “Someone usually hands us a PDF and says, ‘Here, put this online.’ We have a style guide and try to help our peers understand that we need to pick the layout for the content before it goes on the intranet. Why not spend that time on an accessible HTML page, that’s properly written, and formatted for the web? For example, when we asked an intranet-team lead about her team’s content-management processes, she said, However, you still have to plan, write, and design the content you’ll put in the PDF. PDFs are still commonly used because people incorrectly assume that posting a PDF online is faster and easier than creating a webpage, so that’s all that ever gets done. Many organizations and individuals now place a heightened emphasis on sustainability, and, therefore, think twice before printing off a lengthy document that could and should otherwise be formatted and structured for online consumption. PDFs’ usefulness as a vehicle for print is also diminishing due to environmental concerns. Some users will take advantage of these shortcuts, but others won’t. The use of Command or Control + F to find something within a PDF is not familiar to all users. Clickable tables of contents are often introduced in PDFs as pseudo navigation, but users still slow down and have trouble finding what they need. The inability to navigate takes a toll on users as finding information becomes challenging and time consuming. They lack navigation and other interface elements that help users maintain context and move through digital content with speed and ease. ![]() PDFs also use lots of heavy, dense text and elaborate graphics which increase their file size and, subsequently, the time they take to download. Content is split up across sheets of paper, which is fine for printed documents, but causes severe usability problems online. Users can’t scan and scroll around in a PDF like on a web page. We often see users get lost in PDFs because the print-oriented view provides only a small glimpse of the content. ![]() They’re optimized for paper sizes, not browser windows or modern device viewports. PDFs are meant for distributing documents that users will print. After 20 years of watching users perform similar tasks on a variety of sites that use either PDFs or regular web pages, one thing remains certain: PDFs degrade the user experience. The apps in our list of best PDF reader apps for iPhone not only help you open and view pdf documents, but some of them also help you edit them.No matter how tempting it is, you should never use a PDF to display content that users need to read online. How To Choose The Best PDF Readers For iPhone & iPad? Reading books on an iPad is an amazing experience, and with these pdf reader apps, you can read pdf files more efficiently on your iPad. iPad, owing to its larger screen size, is used by many for reading books and comics. Most of the apps that we have enlisted above work flawlessly on iPad in addition to iPhone.
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