CDSM Interactive Solutions

A quick and cost effective PDF to HTML conversion service

Contact Grant Broome at grant.broome@cdsm.co.uk or 0870 904 1666 for more information.

You can now deliver your legacy PDF content in accessible, structural and standards compliant HTML.

Reasons to use our PDF to HTML conversion service

Halve your current conversion costs

To date organisations that have made the decision to provide HTML alternatives for PDF content have had to pay for a manual conversion that has cost anywhere between £6 - £30 per page. Our semi-automated process is fast, accurate and able to cope with both large and small volumes of PDF material.

Supports you in meeting your DED and DDA responsibilities

Improved access to structured HTML pages by assistive technologies helps you to ensure that your documents can be accessed by disabled visitors.

Greater flexibility

Information served as standards-compliant HTML can be easily converted into other formats according your needs or the needs of your customers.

Bandwidth reduction

HTML information is much smaller and efficient than PDF making it quicker and easier to download, view and store your files.

Search accuracy

Why convert PDFs to HTML?

While publishing a PDF seems like a quick and easy way of getting information to the web for the masses, many visitors, customers, search engines and other technologies may find that the information in your PDF documents is difficult to access and sometimes invisible.

For a long time PDFs have been thought of as a convenient and cost-effective way of publishing content on the web but there are drawbacks. Adobe has worked hard to ensure that their format is accessible as it can be, but the goal of providing a convenient, structured and accessible document format is elusive for the company and there are inherent issues with PDF that make it an unsuitable choice for most web content.

Here's a matrix outlining the advantages of offering your PDF documents in HTML format:

Interested in the PDF to HTML conversion service? Contact Grant Broome at grant.broome@cdsm.co.uk or 0870 904 1666 for more information.

Drawback of PDF	Advantage of HTML
PDF viewing requires a plug-in The visitor is typically required to download and/or install the Acrobat plug-in so that they can view PDF content. The plug-in loads each time the user loads a PDF document.	HTML opens in any browser There's no need for your customers to have or install any third party software. HTML files seamlessly open in any web browser.
PDF suffers incompatibility with assistive technologies Most PDFs are potentially inaccessible to groups of disabled users because adding structural information to documents such as headings and tables is a difficult and time-consuming process. The PDF interface can be difficult for some users to control.	HTML is the most accessible document format available By far the most accessible content format to the majority of disabled visitors is HTML. Assistive technologies such as screen readers for blind people are able to access structural information within the HTML page such as headings, lists and tables.
Poor search accuracy While search engines are able to identify a PDF containing a search term, the user will normally need to perform a separate search within the PDF itself in order to find the page that the search term appears on. Providing information in HTML can help reduce costs by providing a quick and easy search mechanism allowing your staff and customers to pinpoint the information they need.	Highly searchable The language of the web is HTML. By using HTML for your web content, you can provide easily readable, adaptable, printable and searchable documents that can be adapted to suit not only your needs but also the needs of your customers. HTML tags can be read by search engines and help to improve search engine rankings.
Archiving Cross referencing archived PDFs is impractical. Pinpointing exact page and phrase locations within multiple documents can be time consuming and requires bespoke software.	Storage and download efficiency File size for HTML is very small when compared to equivalent PDF documents. Providing information in HTML format saves on download time and bandwidth and because there is no need to open a separate plug-in for the browser, a HTML document opens instantly.
Single software format The information in a PDF is not easily extracted and used in other ways. Once information is in the PDF format, extraction of the data is difficult and unstructured.	Flexibility Because the information stored in well-formed HTML is properly structured text it can be transformed into other formats automatically to suit the requirements of the project while retaining its structure.

Drawback of PDF

Advantage of HTML

PDF viewing requires a plug-in

The visitor is typically required to download and/or install the Acrobat plug-in so that they can view PDF content. The plug-in loads each time the user loads a PDF document.

HTML opens in any browser

There's no need for your customers to have or install any third party software. HTML files seamlessly open in any web browser.

PDF suffers incompatibility with assistive technologies

Most PDFs are potentially inaccessible to groups of disabled users because adding structural information to documents such as headings and tables is a difficult and time-consuming process. The PDF interface can be difficult for some users to control.

HTML is the most accessible document format available

By far the most accessible content format to the majority of disabled visitors is HTML. Assistive technologies such as screen readers for blind people are able to access structural information within the HTML page such as headings, lists and tables.

Poor search accuracy

While search engines are able to identify a PDF containing a search term, the user will normally need to perform a separate search within the PDF itself in order to find the page that the search term appears on. Providing information in HTML can help reduce costs by providing a quick and easy search mechanism allowing your staff and customers to pinpoint the information they need.

Highly searchable

The language of the web is HTML. By using HTML for your web content, you can provide easily readable, adaptable, printable and searchable documents that can be adapted to suit not only your needs but also the needs of your customers. HTML tags can be read by search engines and help to improve search engine rankings.

Archiving

Cross referencing archived PDFs is impractical. Pinpointing exact page and phrase locations within multiple documents can be time consuming and requires bespoke software.

Storage and download efficiency

File size for HTML is very small when compared to equivalent PDF documents. Providing information in HTML format saves on download time and bandwidth and because there is no need to open a separate plug-in for the browser, a HTML document opens instantly.

Single software format

The information in a PDF is not easily extracted and used in other ways. Once information is in the PDF format, extraction of the data is difficult and unstructured.

Flexibility

Because the information stored in well-formed HTML is properly structured text it can be transformed into other formats automatically to suit the requirements of the project while retaining its structure.

Interested in the PDF to HTML conversion service? Contact Grant Broome at grant.broome@cdsm.co.uk or 0870 904 1666 for more information.