Reasons you should stop using PDF for business content

Many businesses at the moment use the PDF file format for most of the paperwork and official correspondences and for a good reason. However, if you are one of the people that use PDF or plan to start using it in your business, it is best if you understand some of the limitation that this file format comes with. PDF file format is no longer capable to match the ever-changing requirements of business that we face today. That makes it necessary to make a shift to a more powerful file format that can handle the demands of modern business. The content you create for your customers for a very important part of your business because the experience of your customers depends on it.

In this article, I will be highlighting some of the shortcomings that are associated with PDF file format that make it necessary to switch to a different file format for the sake of your business.

They’re not mobile-friendly

PDF documents are usually designed with a fixed-layout, which means that they are designed to be viewed on desktop computers or to be printed on a printer. As such, it is extremely hard to use them on mobile devices yet more and more people are using mobile devices to accomplish tasks they previously accomplished using their desktop and laptop computers. When viewing a PDF document on a mobile device, one usually has to zoom and pan the document a lot in order to read the whole of it. This usually affects user experience a lot. If your business produces PDF documents that customers struggle with to read, it is a high time you change your approach and use a different file format. No one like all the hassle of reading content that doesn’t fit on their screen

They require multiple steps to access

In order to view a PDF document on a desktop computer, one usually has to download it first before they can view it. This is usually a very huge barrier for people who use desktop computers. Now, when this same barrier is imported to mobile devices, it presents even a bigger problem because on mobile devices, besides downloading, one has to use a file manager app and a third party PDF viewer application. Well, if you are a business, this kind of inconvenience that is caused to customers can lead to a lot of lost opportunities. Customers will abandon your fliers, brochures, or posters before they even open them if they encounter any kind of difficulty in accessing them.

You can’t track reader engagement

The third limitation that PDF files present is that they don’t allow for tracking of reader engagement. These documents are stand-alone kind of alien and once you release them onto the Internet, you can never know who engages with them and who doesn’t. Even though you can track how many downloads were made from your landing page, it is not possible to know what the person who downloaded the document did with it after doing so. You should learn more about how to use PDF converter to word so that you make your PDF files more accessible.