Web professionals have always frown upon the use of PDF as the online version of a print newsletter or magazine.
For some publication officers and college magazine editors, PDF is an easy way to provide the online version of their hard print work.
Just take the final file from the designer (PDF has been used for proofs for many years), have it uploaded to the web server and… voila!
According to The State of Print and Electronic Publications in Higher Ed, a survey completed by 198 professionals last year, PDF is the format of choice for the electronic version of the main magazine in 38% of the cases as shown below.
- PDF file of the print magazine: 38%
- Website powered by content management system: 21%
- Email newsletter: 18%
- Flash-based flipping-through digital magazine: 12%
- Website powered by a blogging platform: 6%
- Other: 4%
Even if the practice is quick and cost-effective, it has been proven by many usability studies that PDF isn’t a user-friendly format for people browsing on computers. These files were also problematic for search optimization as their content was not indexed by search engines in the past – but this isn’t the case anymore.
Yet, in web circles, PDF still has a bad vibe. No respectable web professional wants to see PDF used on web servers for anything except maybe for official forms that needs to be printed.
While I still think web versions of print magazines or other publications are a better way to cater to readers using a computer or even a smartphone (or a pocket sized web mobile device like the iPod Touch), I can’t help think it won’t be the case for ebook readers or tablets – especially when these new “reading” devices are going to get a big push from students looking for a better text book solution.
So, what should a college magazine or publication officer do?
Adopt a multichannel approach: develop a real online version and keep the PDF version for print publications – even if they end up not printing them anymore in the future.
What do YOU think?