Creative Ways to Convert Your PDFs
Converting your PDFs into online content has many benefits. It makes the content searchable, translatable, accessible, and responsive. Worried about converting long documents? Our trusted web experts have some creative problem-solving for difficult PDFs to repurpose.
Accordions
Information such as rates or bylaws are an important part of your organization. Repurposing these into web content may seem tricky as these can be pretty long documents. However, there’s a great creative way to do this.
Use accordions for every section on the document. This keeps the page looking neat, and site visitors can easily find and select the specific item/topic they are looking for. This will keep them from becoming overwhelmed as they don’t have to see all the information at once. The colors of the accordions will also match your branding and the page will still keep in line with the design of your website.
Anchor Links
Site visitors are used to scrolling down a page for information. But for very long pages, you can also use anchor links. These allow people to be able to jump to a specific section from the top of the page. Create a glossary or table of contents at the top of the page with each section listed out. These will then link and jump to the relevant section header on the page. It allows them to quickly skip to the appropriate section they are looking for without having to scroll too much.
Create a “Back to Top” anchor button at the end of every section to allow them to quickly jump back to the top of the page as well.
Graphic Tiles
If the PDF is very hefty, you can break out the document into multiple pages and use graphic tiles as a menu. Create a landing page with some general info on what the document is about. Then include your graphic tiles as a table of contents. Each page will pertain to a specific section. The icons in the graphic tiles will provide some nice visuals as well. Breaking the document up into multiple pages keeps things neat and organized so the page doesn’t feel too cluttered.
Buttons
To allow further ease for your site visitors, you can create buttons on the bottom of each page that will lead to the next section. Make sure the buttons are specific, such as “Next Page: Important Contact Information”. You can do the same with a “Previous Page” button as well. This will allow your site visitors an extra way of going through the content in the correct order without having to return back to the main landing page each time.
Images
You definitely want to include all the images from your document as this provides a nice visual interest and enhances the content. Align the images alternating between left and right or create a gallery of multiple images below a section of your content. Make sure to add in any relevant captions.
If some images are too small to see everything that is needed, link the image to the media file. A site visitor can click on the image to get a larger view. Then they are able to zoom in if needed. This is especially helpful if someone is looking at the page on a mobile device.
Benefits
All these tips are mobile responsive so site visitors can view the content and it will be optimized for their device. The content is easy to search through with all these different methods and also allows the content to be searchable which makes for a better experience for your site visitors.
Can it be Converted?
While converting your PDFs is generally a great concept, you do want to make sure that the PDF can be converted. Certain documents, such as ones with many diagrams, would be difficult to translate into web content and make accessible. Make sure that repurposing the PDF will add to your site by making it easier for people to read through.
Creative Conversions
Pick any one of these tips by what fits you best. These innovative recommendations will further enhance your content and keep it looking great.
