Going forward, these guidelines will help staff to choose the best format for documents created at the UMass President's Office.
Types of PDF Documents found on our website today:
- Documents received as PDF (from a third party, vendor, software or scanned to PDF)
- Legal documents
- Event notifications, calendars, flyers, view books, maps
- Large Annual Reports
- How to Guides/Job Aids
- Documents that require signatures
- Forms
- Meeting notes/agendas, project updates
- Flowcharts/org charts
Options Instead of PDF
Most content can be a web page/HTML content.
- The website provides lots of layout options and supports graphics in an accessible way
- The web team can help work on special layouts if deemed necessary
- Web content is easier to edit/maintain than a PDF
- Multiple editors can have access
- Draft/publishing workflow and revision history are built in
- Even large reports can be made into book style web pages with built in navigation
- Online forms can be used to take in information
- Online forms can be used to do simple workflows that require approvals
- Events can be advertised on the website, included in emails and event provide registration
- Graphically intense content can often be added to a webpage but requires consultation with the DX Team as new layouts may be required and we will need to make sure the solution works for assistive technology users
How-to guides or job aids should be created as Knowledge articles.
- Knowledge articles can include steps and screenshots
- Knowledge articles can be attached to support cases directly
- Customers are used to going to the Help site and Knowledge Base for support
Keep the document in Word, Excel or PowerPoint instead of PDF
- Document formatting/inability to open a document is not as big a problem as it used to be
- The native software provides accessibility tools and is far easier to make documents fully accessible whereas PDF never achieves full accessibility
- Converting to PDF means creating the document accessibly in the original software and doing extra work once converted to make sure the conversion didn't break accessibility such as mixing up the reading order
- Keeping the document in its native format means easier editing and reposting when needed
Possible Exceptions
Does UMass own this document?
If the document is provided by a third party we should work with that party to resolve any issues. In this case it may not be legal to alter the document. Consult with the DX Team for next steps.
Is there a legal requirement to save this content as a PDF?
Software limitations or legal requirements might dictate PDF format. In that case, staff need to be trained to make their PDFs as accessible as possible.
Large Reports May Require PDF for Compression Purposes
In the case that a large report has to be posted online, a PDF, made as accessible as possible, may be the best option due to file compression. However, the document should be available in another format if requested.
What about Security?
When PDF first came into being, one needed the PDF Reader to read a PDF and only those with the full (and pricy) version of Adobe Acrobat could edit PDFs. Many people still use PDF as a way of locking down a document. However, a PDF document is no longer inherently secure. Many people have the full version of Adobe Acrobat now and every Mac computer can open PDFs and convert them to other formats and then edit.
Making a document read-only in any application will likely break accessibility. If you really need a document to be secure, you should contact the DX Team and we can help brainstorm a way to secure a document that does not break accessibility.