First of all, please let me know if this post is inappropriate for this
list. If so then please point me elsewhere.
We have a client for whom we created a website some 7 years ago. The
site has developed over the years, and now comprises approximately 140
pages across a dozen or so categories. The customer is a
hotel/leisure/golf resort in the UK and has two main types of site visitor:
1) Club members (approx 5000)
2) Non members that are looking for weekend breaks, golf venues, wedding
venues, dining, conference facilities etc.
The current site uses 99.9% html for content, with a server-based CMS
that we developed and put in place at the outset, and which is used to
update the site several times a day with news of results, events, etc, etc.
Anyway, to get to the point, the customer has now been advised by a
marketing agency that the site should be reduced in size to approx 45
key pages, and that the majority of content for things such as
conference room specification and rates, bedroom specs and rates, menus,
events, golf rates, membership rates etc, should be made available in
PDF form instead of the html pages that are on the current site.
I am aware that recent versions of Adobe allow more accessible PDF
content to be created, but I would be grateful for thoughts on the use
of PDF content instead of html content. Just to confirm, the
recommendation from the agency is to replace existing html content with
PDF version, not to provide PDFs as an additional alternative.
I have researched articles on various sites, and the general advice
seems to be that PDFs have their place when specific layout or
functionality requires, but that these are generally considered to be
fairly exceptional cases, such as legal forms that must be delivered in
an original format, or multi-columnar information that cannot be
degraded to an acceptable single column layout.
I know that the customer will quite possibly consider any representation
from us to avoid going down this path as an attempt to protect our
interests in redevelopment proposals, so I would be very grateful for
feedback and recommendations from others.
Many thanks,
--
Nick Roper
partner
logical elements
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