The PDF on your site is probably not readable

What goes wrong in export

A design tool lays out shapes and text on a canvas. Exporting that to a document does not create headings, reading order or alternative text unless somebody made them.

The result looks correct and has no structure underneath. Assistive technology gets a page of loose text in whatever order the file happens to hold.

Worse, a PDF made by scanning or from a flattened design is an image. There is no text in it at all.

The result looks correct and has no structure underneath, which is why nobody notices. Nothing about the file's appearance reveals that it cannot be read aloud.

Why a page is usually better

A page reflows on a phone. It can be enlarged without sideways scrolling. It is read aloud with real headings. It can be found by search and quoted by an answer engine.

A PDF does none of those well. It also takes a visitor out of your site into a viewer, which on a phone is a poor experience they often abandon.

The price list, the service menu, the opening hours card. All of those are pages, not documents.

It is also easier to correct. A price that changed is one edit on a page, and a new export plus a new upload for a document.

A page is also easier to correct. A changed price is one edit on a page and a fresh export plus a fresh upload for a document.

When a document is the right answer

When somebody genuinely needs to print, sign, or keep a fixed copy. A form to complete by hand. A specification sheet. A certificate.

Also where the layout itself is the content, such as a technical drawing.

Even then, put the key facts on a page and offer the document as an extra for people who need it.

• A form somebody has to print, sign and return
• A specification sheet a trade customer will file
• A certificate or a warranty document
• A technical drawing where the layout is the content
• Anything a regulator requires in a fixed format
• Anything that must survive being printed exactly as laid out

Making a document readable

If you must publish one, structure it. Real heading styles in the source document, alternative text on images, a reading order that matches the visual one, and a title in the file properties.

Tables need real header rows. Links need meaningful text. Language needs declaring so speech pronounces it correctly.

Most of this is set in the source document before export, which is far easier than repairing the file afterwards.

Tell people what they are clicking

A link to a document should say it is a document, and say roughly how large it is.

Opening an unexpected download is disorienting for anybody and particularly so for a screen reader user who has left the page without meaning to.

Three extra words in the link text solves it entirely.

Three extra words in the link text prevents an unexpected download, which is the point made in link text.

The search cost

Search engines do index documents, and they rank them less usefully than pages, present them worse in results, and cannot show them well on a phone.

If the content matters enough to publish, it matters enough to be a page that can rank properly and be read by anybody.

A page also lets you link onwards, which a document does not.

What we do with them

Pages here are written from a conversation about your business, so information that arrived as a document is normally turned into a page during that conversation.

Every page passes a check that runs before anything publishes, validated against Google Search Essentials and modern web standards. A document you upload sits outside that check, which is another reason to prefer a page.

Where you do need to offer one, keep the page as the primary version and the file as the alternative.

Nothing here is legal advice. The practical point is that a document is a worse home for information than a page in almost every respect that matters.

Where you do publish one, keep the page as the primary version and the file as the alternative, rather than the other way round.