Between 15 and 20 years ago, I was a co-developer of a cross-media newspaper system for a regional publisher. When the internet was rather young in the region, we had the goal of convincing the readership of browser-based articles. Back then, many readers were impressed and the use of the online website increased steadily. Hardly anyone wanted a PDF version of the newspaper – if anything, they preferred a printed edition.
Today, things are different: in addition to the website, the publisher offers readers a so-called “eTageszeitung” and there is no longer a printed version. The PDF version seems to be popular, as it has been offered continuously for several years. Waiting for the next issue of the newspaper is definitely a thing of the past, as most – if not all – articles are available immediately and as soon as they are published.
Media releases: PDF or online?
10 to 15 years ago, as part of an international marketing and P.R. team, I tried to convince customers to use online media releases instead of PDFs sent by email. Despite the higher costs, our customers preferred to have PDFs designed, even though this did not result in a print product on the editorial side. A digital version of the content – neither as an HTML email nor as an online article – was rarely accepted by the media representatives. We often heard that there was no reason to optimise the existing processes. It was only with the advent of the iPhone and the increasing use of devices with different screen sizes that many editorial offices began to take a closer look at the delivery of media releases.
Generating PDFs automatically
In recent years, I have implemented a solution for the automatic generation of PDFs in several projects. Visitors can read articles in the browser, but can also optionally download them as PDFs. I suspect that these PDFs are usually stored as archive copies in file folders. This assessment was also confirmed to me by a customer – a well-known publishing house in Switzerland. The extra work involved in manual PDF production is often consciously accepted in order to satisfy a very traditional readership.
As a web professional, you might assume that readers would be upset about being forced to use a certain device – for example, because a PDF is difficult to read on a mobile phone. But this is not the case: it turns out that some readers simply accept this and see it as normal. Especially if the readership is less affine and not yet familiar with the more modern alternative.
Conclusion
In traditional editorial offices, people often shy away from anything they don’t already know. The challenge lies with those who are tied to processes that have been established for years and do not want to – or cannot – change them. Less expensive and technically simpler approaches are more likely to be accepted by younger companies and publishers – or by those whose readership consists of digital natives. So there is no one-size-fits-all solution that can be used for every project.
The technology
From a technical point of view, by using Puppeteer and Chrome on a node server, I was able to ensure that the layouts were realised in an appealing way. The documents are designed and prepared in WordPress with the Block Editor and modern CSS, including CSS Grid. A private Node server then takes over the optional assignment of a watermark as well as the generation and delivery of the PDF file.
