Essentially, when adding a PDF to your site, you are making it more challenging for a user to access, understand, and share your content. This reduces the overall quality and usability of your page.

Every page that you are creating should have an intended audience and you'll want to write in a way that your audience can understand. While developing the tone and content of your page is entirely up to you, here are a couple of tools that can help you tailor your page to the intended audience.

Not inherently accessible
When creating or converting a document into a PDF most of the accessibility features will not be automatically applied to your document. Creating an accessible PDF document will take additional work (often in a specific PDF program) beyond simply creating the document content.

Must be properly tagged
An accessible PDF document often refers to a "tagged" PDF document. PDF tags provide the instruction to the screen reading program as to how to correctly progress through the document. The tags are invisible and exist for accessibility purposes only. There may be more steps involved in creating an accessible PDF document than tagging along, but adding appropriate and helpful tags to a PDF is a critical step in ensuring that the PDF document is accessible. Untagged PDF documents are not accessible.

Not Mobile-Friendly
PDF documents are considered a fixed-layout design. This means that the information and design will not respond to the screen size of the user's device as a web page would. It is extremely difficult to view a full-page PDF document on a mobile device and often requires pinching, zooming, and panning to consume the information. This is a major usability and accessibility issue for individuals who may not have full use of their hands and/or fingers.

Time-consuming
PDF documents are typically quite large and could take an excessive amount of time to download. Because of this PDF documents may not download properly or completely, may be too large for the device to display, and often causes an abrupt change in focus pulling the user away from their intended goals. All of these items can cause a user to become distracted and end up wasting time.

Difficult to share
There is likely great content in your PDF document and your users may want to share that information with their friends and colleagues. Unfortunately, PDF documents do not generally include any type of social sharing feature. Social sharing features make it easier for a user to post on social platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, or email an intriguing piece of information out to their networks. When adding a PDF document to your site, you greatly reduce the likelihood that the content of your PDF will be shared. It is easier and faster to share a URL to a web page than it is to share a large, inaccessible PDF document.

Lack searchability
When creating or converting a document into a PDF most of the searchability features will not be automatically applied to your document. A search can typically find your PDF documents online, but in most cases, the documents do not include the needed information to help search engines understand the content of the document. This negatively impacts the SEO of your PDF and search engine rankings.

Can’t track engagement
A PDF document lacks the ability to capture any data about the user and the interaction. Website analytics can pull the data on how many times the PDF document has been download but there is no data available to gauge the interaction. With a PDF document, you can tell how long a user was reading it, what content they found interesting, if they clicked on any links, if they even opened the document, or what they did after consuming your PDF. In many cases, important decisions are made based on the data provided by website analytics. By using a PDF document to convey your message instead of a webpage you are excluding this important analytical user engagement data.

Can't control the distribution
Once a PDF is downloaded, you no longer have control over how or when that information is disseminated. If you need to add new data, correct an error, update information, or make any other changes, the downloaded PDF will never be updated with the new content. The information may be out of date or incorrect which reflects poorly upon your team and the goal of the PDF.

The recommended approach to distributing the information is on a CMS web page, and not as a PDF document linked online. The CMS Guided Walkthrough can guide you through all of the features available to help you reproduce the PDF content as a CMS web page.

If the PDF document is intended to be printed by a user, you will still want to reproduce the content as a web page, but also, include a link to pdf for printing purposes. The PDF document would still need to be fully compliant to be offered online.

There are instances, however, where the information on a PDF document cannot be reproduced on a CMS page. In those instances, a PDF document may be used but it must be made fully compliant with the WCAG 2.0 AA standards. That doesn't mean that a PDF document is the only format in which the information is made available. It's critical to note though, this should only be done in those instances where it is impossible to reproduce the information in a PDF document as a CMS web page. It should not be the case for instances where it seems too challenging, confusing, or time-consuming.

The GVSU eLearning Technologies team offers resources on how to make a PDF document fully compliant.