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Content guidelines for Help and Support

PDFs

PDFs are not a recommended format for several reasons:
  • Artificial Intelligence cannot access the contents of the PDF file.
  • PDFs present a degraded user experience when accessed on mobile devices. The text may be impossible to read, or difficult to navigate when zoomed in. Web-based help is developed with a mobile-first approach so the experience is always good.
  • PDFs are extremely difficult to make compliant with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
  • PDFs take longer to make updates to than web-based content.
    • To make a change to a PDF, a content author has to find the original document (if it's even available), make the change, ensure it’s accessible, save it as a new PDF, repost it to the web, and ensure that any existing links point to the new version.
    • To make a change to a web-based article, the content author finds the page in Adobe Experience Manager, makes the change, saves it, and publishes it.
  • If there are branding changes to PDF templates, each PDF needs to be updated individually and manually. Web based content is updated at scale.
It is appropriate to use PDF when your intended deliverable is something that is physically printed before given to customers. Because our help content is web-based, PDF is not the preferred or recommended format for delivering help content.

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