A Print Brochure Is Not a Web Page

Why the PDF ends up there

Entirely understandably. The brochure exists, it took effort, it contains everything, and uploading it takes a minute.

It also feels like value: a substantial document rather than a page.

And it solves a real problem, which is that writing web content is work and the brochure content is already written.

None of which changes anything about what actually happens when somebody opens it on a phone.

What goes wrong

• It downloads rather than opening, which is a decision to make before seeing anything.
• It renders at page size, so text is unreadably small on a phone.
• It requires pinching and dragging to read a single paragraph.
• It is largely invisible to search, particularly if the text is in images.
• It is frequently inaccessible to screen readers.
• It is heavy, costing time and mobile data.

The second is the fundamental one. A print page is a fixed shape designed for a fixed size, and a phone is neither.

Why print and web differ

Not a matter of taste, but of what each medium is.

Print is fixed. The designer knows the exact dimensions, the text will not reflow, and the reader holds the whole thing.

Web is fluid. The dimensions are unknown, text reflows, and the reader sees one screen at a time in an unknown order.

Which means print can rely on layout to carry meaning, and web has to carry it in structure and words.

A brochure's careful spread across two facing pages has no equivalent online, and a PDF preserves the layout by discarding everything that made it work.

A worked example

A business whose main service information existed only in a twelve-page PDF linked from the homepage.

Analytics showed the link being clicked reasonably often and very few enquiries following.

Testing on a phone, the download took several seconds, opened at a size requiring zoom, and the second page was where the useful information started.

They rewrote it as four web pages, using the same content, and kept the PDF as an optional download for anybody who wanted something to print.

Enquiries rose, and the pages began appearing in searches for phrases that had been in the brochure for two years and had never been findable.

The PDF continued to be downloaded occasionally, by people who had already read the pages, which is the correct role for it.

What to keep from the brochure

The content, which is the expensive part.

Somebody thought carefully about what to say, in what order, and had it checked. That work transfers.

What does not transfer is the layout, the pagination, the spreads and the fixed dimensions.

Which means the conversion is a restructuring rather than a rewrite: taking the sections and making each a page or a section of one.

That is an afternoon per few pages, considerably less than writing from nothing, and it is the fastest route to good web content that most businesses already have available.

When a PDF is right

Genuine cases, and they are narrower than the practice suggests.

A document intended to be printed: a form to complete by hand, a certificate, a specification to take to site.

Something needing to be a fixed record, such as a signed document or a price list valid on a date.

A large technical document where the structure is genuinely book-like and readers expect to download it.

In each case the PDF should sit alongside a web page rather than instead of one, so somebody can read the substance without downloading anything.

The file that never gets updated

A slower problem and a real one.

A PDF is a fixed artefact. Changing a price means editing the source document, re-exporting and re-uploading, which requires whoever holds the original file.

Which means it is updated less often than a page, and frequently not at all once the designer has moved on.

A brochure from 2017 with 2017 prices sits on a site indefinitely, being downloaded, because nothing on the page indicates its age.

Dating the document visibly, on the first page and in the link, is the minimum, and moving the content to a page is the actual fix.

Making a PDF less bad

Where one is unavoidable, a few things reduce the damage.

Say what it is, how large, and how many pages, before somebody clicks. A link reading download the specification, PDF, two megabytes is a courtesy.

Make sure the text is real text rather than a scan, which determines whether it can be searched, selected or read aloud.

Add document structure and a title, which most tools support and most people skip.

Keep the file size reasonable, since a print-resolution PDF is enormous and a web-resolution one is a fraction of the size.

The reverse also applies

Worth noting, since businesses do this too.

A web page printed onto a leaflet is usually as poor as the reverse: too little on the page, headings that made sense as navigation, and a call to action telling somebody to click.

Print rewards density and hierarchy in a way web does not, and a leaflet with one sentence per section reads as insubstantial.

Which means the content transfers in both directions and the presentation does not, and each version deserves to be laid out for its own medium.

The same paragraphs, arranged differently, is the correct relationship between the two.

The download link itself

A small courtesy that costs nothing.

A link should say what it is, that it is a PDF, and roughly how large, before somebody commits to tapping it.

Somebody on a limited connection, or in an area with poor signal, wants that information first rather than discovering it mid-download.

And the link text should describe the document rather than reading download, which tells nobody anything about what they are getting.

What to do

1. Find every PDF linked from your site.
2. Check which contain information available nowhere else.
3. Convert those to pages, keeping the content.
4. Keep the PDF as an optional download where useful.
5. Label the remaining links with type and size.
6. Check the text is real text, not a scan.

The second is the test that actually matters. A PDF duplicating a page is harmless; a PDF that is the only copy of something is simply a page you have not yet written.

The same problem in a different setting is covered in a restaurant site you cannot read on a phone.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.